Unilateral Nevoid Telangiectasia Syndrome

Case for diagnosis

A 27 year-old-man, with no known personal or familial history of disease, mentioned a 10-year history of asymptomatic groups of telangiectasias, with a Blaschko lines distribution on the right lateral aspect of the neck and asymptomatic. He denied any episodes of disease or drug intake that could be associated with the disease. Blood work had no changes, namely of liver enzymes or infectious serologies. The clinical diagnosis of Idiopathic Acquired Unilateral Nevoid Telangiectasia was made, an uncommon, benign vascular malformation. The patient declined doing a cutaneous biopsy or treatment with a cosmetic intent.

Unilateral nevoid telangiectasia: a rare disease?

Unilateral nevoid telangiectasia is a rare congenital or acquired disorder. The majority of the authors propose that it is probably related to elevated estrogen receptors, although other authors advocate different theories. We report the occurrence of lesions clinically compatible with this diagnosis in a child and two adults. Only one of the patients had a background of estrogen elevation. The other two patients were healthy. We stress the occurrence of this disease in a rare idiopathic form and point out to the relative elevated incidence of it, because the patients discussed in this article were observed for a short period of time.

Acquired unilateral nevoid telangiectasia in a healthy men

Unilateral nevoid telangiectasia is a rare vascular dermatosis, characterized by areas of superficial telangiectases distributed in a linear unilateral pattern. It was described in 1899 by Zeisler and Blascko. Several theories where developed in order to explain its etiopathogenesis. The most widely accepted is the one which establishes its probable association with an increase in the estrogen levels. There are two types: congenital and acquired. The latter is associated with hepatopathies in male patients. The acquired form is rarely observed in healthy men, with a few cases reported in the medical literature, and its etiology is unknown. This study reports the case of a healthy young man with acquired unilateral nevoid telangiectasia, without any comorbidities, clinical and /or laboratory findings indicative of hyperestrogenism.