A JAPANESE CASE OF THE FIBRILLAR TYPE OF DERMATITIS-HERPETIFORMIS

Background: Although dermatitis herpetiformis (DH) is a relatively com mon disease in Caucasian populations, this disease is very rare in Asi an populations including the Japanese. Methods and Results: We present a Japanese DH patient, who showed a fibrillar pattern of deposition o f IgA, IgG, IgM and C3, The HLA typing revealed no B8/DR3. The survey of the Japanese literature and the comparison to studies on American o r European DH revealed several interesting differences: high frequency of the fibrillar pattern, relatively high incidence of deposits of im munoglobulins other than IgA, rarity of gluten-sensitive enteropathy a nd HLA-B8/DR3 in Japanese DH. Conclusion: The present study suggests t hat there may be a significant difference in pathophysiology between C aucasian and Japanese DH patients.