Acquired port-wine stain in a pediatric patient

A case of acquired port wine stain: an association with repeated sunburn?

BACKGROUND

Unlike congenital port wine stain (PWS), an acquired PWS is a rare vascular lesion that develops later in life. Although solar damage is associated with acquired PWS, there is no reported case of acquired PWS after sunburn in the literature.

METHODS

We report a case of a 54-year-old man diagnosed with acquired PWS possibly caused by repeated sunburn.

RESULTS

We recommended laser treatment to our patient; however, the patient did not chose to receive any treatment.

CONCLUSIONS

Our case demonstrates a possible rare occurrence of an acquired PWS after sunburn with larger lesions and more diffuse distribution. For this reason, our case differs from other acquired PWS cases.

Acquired Port-wine Stain in an Adult Male: First Reported Case from India with Review of Literature

Port-wine stains (PWSs) are congenital vascular lesions caused by progressive ectasia of blood vessels located in the vascular plexus of the dermis. Acquired PWSs develop later in life but are identical in morphology and histology to the congenital PWSs. Less than 75 cases of acquired PWSs have been reported in the published literature, of which there has not been a single report from India so far. Various factors have been proposed for its pathogenesis like trauma, actinic exposure, drugs, tumors, and herpes zoster infection. We report an acquired port-wine stain in a 41-year-old male. The causative factors, treatment, and previous reports of this uncommon entity have also been reviewed.

Early morphea mimicking acquired port-wine stain

We report the case of a 2.5-year-old girl with linear morphea initially diagnosed as an acquired port-wine stain (PWS). She underwent three treatments to the right face using the pulsed dye laser (PDL) before sclerotic changes were observed and the correct diagnosis was confirmed with histopathology. Treatment using the PDL reduced the skin erythema but did not prevent subsequent sclerosis. The sclerosis became most prominent superior to the patient's right ear in an area not treated using the laser. A review of the English-language medical literature identified no cases of morphea triggered using a PDL, but there were several reports of early morphea misdiagnosed as an acquired PWS. Briefly, we review those cases, as well as morphea subtypes, and comment on how the pathophysiology of morphea may lend itself to an early underrecognized inflammatory presentation, delaying diagnosis.