Neutrophilic eccrine hidradenitis

PubMed, the Internet portal of biomedical and life sciences literature, indexed an interesting article, entitled “Adult idiopathic neutrophilic eccrine hidradenitis treated with colchicine” (Presse Med. 2006 Oct;35(10-C1):1475-1478). Authors are Belot V, Perrinaud A, Corven C, et al., from the Service de dermatologie, France. Neutrophilic eccrine hidradenitis (NEH) is a rare disease belonging to the group of neutrophilic dermatoses. It has a characteristic histopathologic pattern, with necrosis of the eccrine glands and a local neutrophilic infiltrate. It occurs mostly in patients receiving chemotherapy for acute myeloblastic leukemia or, less frequently, another malignancy. The authors report the case of a 56-year-old woman with no remarkable medical history who developed an erythematous papular facial eruption. Skin biopsy showed typical features of neutrophilic eccrine hidradenitis including neutrophilic infiltrate. No cause was found. The patient was successfully treated with colchicine. This case is particular because NEH was not associated with malignant hematologic disease, solid cancer, chemotherapy, fever or any other disease, after a follow-up of 22 months. To access the full abstract of the article, click here.