Dermatoses neutrofílicas: parte I

Sweet or Not? Azathioprine-Induced Sweet Syndrome Mimicking Erythema Nodosum in a Patient With Inflammatory Bowel Disease

This case report highlights the clinical challenge and need to distinguish Sweet syndrome and erythema nodosum (EN) in a 50-year-old woman with newly initiated azathioprine for inflammatory bowel disease. While she initially presented with clinical features concerning for drug-induced Sweet syndrome, a subsequent histopathological examination confirmed early-stage EN. Both Sweet syndrome and EN share common triggers and therapeutic responses, but have distinctive clinical characteristics. Subtle histologic differences also exist in lesion distribution and depth of infiltration. This case underscores the need for accurate differentiation in patients with inflammatory bowel disease to initiate appropriate management and avoid potential complications.

Sweet's Syndrome: A Case Report of a Rare Extraintestinal Manifestation of Ulcerative Colitis

Sweet’s syndrome is a neutrophilic dermatosis of unknown etiology and a rare extraintestinal manifestation of ulcerative colitis.

Classically, it is more common in women with active inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This syndrome typically presents in patients with acute-onset painful tender erythematous skin lesions and is usually accompanied by fever, arthralgia, and elevated inflammatory markers. Histological examination is characterized by diffuse dense dermal neutrophilic infiltrate with leukocytoclasia, without vasculitis.

The treatment goals are to reduce morbidity and complications, and the most effective therapy is systemic corticosteroids. Early recognition of this syndrome is essential to improve our diagnostic and therapeutic abilities.

We report a case of a 59-year-old female with ulcerative colitis, which presented with manifestations of Sweet’s syndrome.

Neutrophilic dermatosis of the dorsal hands: response to dapsone monotherapy

Neutrophilic dermatosis of the dorsal hands is considered a rare and localized variant of Sweet's syndrome. Although the etiology is unknown, there are reports of association with infections, neoplasias, autoimmune diseases and medications. Histopathology shows a dense neutrophilic inflammatory infiltrate in the dermis. Treatment is based on the administration of systemic corticosteroids; however, a combination of medications is useful, given the frequency of relapses. The authors report a classic and clinically exuberant case of neutrophilic dermatosis of the dorsal hands, with excellent response to oral dapsone treatment, and offer a brief literature review.

Sweet's syndrome associated with Crohn's disease

Sweet's syndrome is an uncommon benign skin disorder, whose pathogenesis remains unknown. Its classic form is more common in women and presents itself as papular-nodular, painful and erythematous or violaceous lesions. It mainly affects the face, neck, and upper limbs. Fever and neutrophilic leukocytosis are also common features. Although it is considered a systemic disease marker in more than half of patients, the association of this condition with Crohn's disease is rare, with few cases reported in the literature, of which, none in Brazil. We report the case of a patient with Crohn's disease who developed the classical features of Sweet's syndrome.

Skin symptoms as diagnostic clue for autoinflammatory diseases

Autoinflammatory disorders are immune-mediated diseases with increased production of inflammatory cytokines and absence of detectable autoantibodies. They course with recurrent episodes of systemic inflammation and fever is the most common symptom. Cutaneous manifestations are prevalent and important to diagnosis and early treatment of the syndromes. The purpose of this review is to emphasize to dermatologists the skin symptoms present in these syndromes in order to provide their early diagnosis.

Exuberant pyoderma gangrenosum in a patient with autoimmune hepatitis

Pyoderma gangrenosum is a rare neutrophilic dermatosis, which usually presents as ulcers with erythematous-violaceous undermined edges and a rough base with purulent or sanguinous exudate. It can be primary or associated with an underlying disease. However, rare cases of its association with autoimmune hepatitis have been described in the literature. Diagnosis is based on a characteristic clinical picture and ruling out other causes of ulcers. This paper aims to discuss the management of corticosteroid therapy and the importance of local treatment. We report a case with torpid evolution, presented with multiple and deep ulcers in a young patient with autoimmune hepatitis, causing pain and significant disability. We observed complete healing of lesions after two months of successful treatment.

Sweet Syndrome in childhood

Sweet syndrome or acute febrile neutrophilic dermatosis is a recurrent and rare skin disease caused by the release of cytokines, with diverse possible etiologic causes. It presents clinically with polymorphic skin lesions, fever, arthralgia, and peripheral leukocytosis. In general, it is associated with infections, malignancy and drugs. It usually regresses spontaneously and treatment is primarily to control the basic disease. The authors report the case of a child of 1 year and 11 months who developed Sweet syndrome.

Concurrence of Sweet's syndrome, pathergy phenomenon and erythema nodosum-like lesions

We report the case of a 54-year-old woman with concurrent Sweet's syndrome, pathergy phenomenon and eythema nodosum-like lesions associated with suppurative tonsillitis. Tender, violaceous and highly edematous papules and plaques were detected on the forearms and legs, some of which were pseudovesicular. Similar edematous papules were detected on the dorsum of the hands at the sites of intravenous injection. Biopsies of a plaque on the forearm and a papule at the site of intravenous injection confirmed the presence of Sweet's syndrome. Multiple, tender, violet-red, subcutaneous erythematous nodules were revealed on the legs. A biopsy taken from a nodule on the leg revealed septal panniculitis. To our knowledge, no patient with concurrent Sweet's syndrome, pathergy phenomenon, and erythema nodosum-lesions had been reported yet in previous literature.

Successful treatment with infliximab for refractory para-ileostomal ulceration in a patient with Behҫet's disease

Behҫet's disease (BD) is a chronic disorder involving multiple organ systems including the small and large intestines. A 46-year-old female diagnosed with intestinal BD presented with ileocecal perforation and diffuse peritonitis and subsequently underwent ileocolic resection with ileostomy. After surgery, she suffered from refractory para-ileostomal ulceration associated with BD. Most importantly, however, treatment with infliximab was significantly effective in healing the ulceration. This is the first report of para-ileostomal ulceration associated with BD successfully treated with infliximab, suggesting the possible use of infliximab as a therapeutic option for para-stomal ulcers related to BD.

Isotretinoin-associated Sweet's syndrome: a case report

Objective

Sweet’s syndrome (SS) is characterized by various clinical symptoms, physical features, and pathological findings. Although cases of SS are very rare, there has been an increase in the incidence of drug-induced SS. Till date, there have been only few reported cases of isotretinoin-induced SS.

Case summary

In this report, we describe the case of a 19-year-old girl who developed SS after systemic treatment with oral isotretinoin for nodulocystic acne.

Conclusions

The findings of this report emphasize the importance of evaluating isotretinoin as a possible, though uncommon, cause of SS and replacing it with another treatment if its involvement is suspected.

Neutrophilic dermatoses: an update

Neutrophilic dermatoses constitute a heterogeneous group of dermatologic diseases, which are unified by the predominance of neutrophils within the inflammatory infiltrate on histopathology. The aims of this review were to provide an update on the clinical and histologic presentation of the main neutrophilic dermatoses and to develop a guide for clinical practice. A structured literature search of PubMed, Medline, and Embase was performed, using the key words "neutrophilic disorders", "cutaneous small vessel vasculitis", "Sweet's syndrome", "bowel associated dermatosis arthritis syndrome", "Behcet's", "palisaded neutrophilic and granulomatous dermatosis", "rheumatoid neutrophilic dermatitis", and "pyoderma gangrenosum". Related articles were screened for key terms and were included if appropriate. This group contains a wide spectrum of unique disorders, each with its own histologic and clinical subtleties, making specific diagnosis of a given entity within the group diagnostically challenging. The fact that overlapping forms of neutrophilic dermatoses, which share features of multiple neutrophilic dermatoses, are not uncommon makes the diagnoses more challenging.

Syndrome in question. MAGIC syndrome

The authors present a male 40-year-old patient with established diagnosis of Behçet's disease which had evolved to recurrent bilateral auricular polychondritis crises. MAGIC syndrome (mouth and genital ulcers with inflamed cartilage) is rare and groups together patients with this clinical picture without necessarily fulfilling the clinical criteria for Behçet's disease or relapsing polychondritis, demonstrating an independent disorder.

Behçet disease in association with Budd-Chiari syndrome and multiple thrombosis -- case report

Behçet's disease is a chronic inflammatory disease of unknown aetiology, characterized by recurrent oral and genital aphthous ulcerations, uveitis, skin lesions and other multisystem affections associated with vasculitis. Different types of vessels, predominantly veins, can be affected in Behçet's disease. The frequency of vascular lesions in Behçet's disease, such as superficial and deep venous thromboses, arterial aneurysms and occlusions, ranges between 7-29%. Budd-Chiari syndrome is a rare and serious complication of Behçet's disease and implies thrombosis of the hepatic veins and/or the intrahepatic or suprahepatic inferior vena cava. We report a case of a 25-year-old man with Behçet's disease that developed Budd-Chiari syndrome. The correlation of dermatological, pathological and imaging studies confirmed the diagnosis.

[Sweet's syndrome: retrospective case series of 47 patients]

PURPOSE

Also called acute febrile neutrophilic dermatosis, Sweet's syndrome is an inflammatory disorder with a prominent cutaneous expression. It is characterized by a variety of manifestations, clinical and histological findings. The objective of this study was to describe their clinical, pathological and therapeutic characteristics.

METHODS

We report on a series of 47 patients who presented a Sweet's syndrome, collected in our institution in Tunis between 1997 and 2011.

RESULTS

The patient population consisted of 11 men and 36 women. The mean age was 47 years with extreme ranging from 28 to 74 years. An associated disorder was observed in ten patients: inflammatory disease (three cases), inflammatory bowel disease (two cases), tuberculosis (three cases) and diabetes (three cases). One case of pregnancy was observed. Cutaneous lesions consisted of erythematous plaques or nodules. Lesions were located mainly on the upper or lower extremities. All biopsy specimens demonstrated a dermal infiltrate composed predominantly of neutrophils. Fibrinoid necrosis and intramural inflammation were observed in eight cases.

CONCLUSION

The skin disorder can precede, follow, or appear concurrent with the diagnosis of an associated disease which requires careful surveillance.

Antibiotics used in nonbacterial dermatologic conditions

The majority of nonbacterial dermatological conditions treated with antibiotics benefit from the anti-inflammatory properties of these medications, usually dapsone or tetracycline. Many other antimicrobials are used to treat noninfectious conditions. The following chapter is an overview of select noninfectious dermatological conditions for which antibiotics are used, with a focus on the most common antibiotics used for their nonantimicrobial properties.