Bullous pemphigoid and hemophilia

PubMed, the Internet portal of biomedical and life sciences literature, indexed an interesting article, entitled “Bullous pemphigoid and acquired hemophilia.” (Ann Dermatol Venereol. 2007 Apr;134(4):353-6 ). Authors are Soria A, Matichard E, Descamps V, et al., from the Service de Dermatologie, Hopital Bichat, AP-HP, Paris. Acquired hemophilia is a rare disease. Associated pemphigoid is extremely uncommon. The authors report a case of acquired hemophilia in the course of this dermatosis illustrating the severity of the disease. An 83 year-old woman was followed for 3 years for pemphigoid treated with topical corticosteroids following a recent relapse. Acquired hemophilia, as revealed by cutaneous-mucosal bleeding, is a rare disease (1 to 4 cases per million subjects) more commonly seen in adults. It is associated with the presence of antibodies directed against factor VIII. Its complications, particularly hemorrhagic, are fatal in 15 to 20% of cases. To access the full abstract of the article, click here.