A CASE OF HYDROA VACCINIFORME WITH UNUSUAL EAR MUTILATION

A 22-year-old man visited our department with a 18-year-history of rec urrent vesicular eruption on his skin when exposed to the sun. History revealed that the skin lesions developed as vesicles at first, then o ver the next several days, they formed crusts and healed with scarring . We were able to induce skin lesions by a repetitive UV-A provocation test. By the clinical and histologic features of the induced lesions, the case was diagnosed as hydroa vacciniforme (HV). However, no vesic ular lesions were found on physical examination. Instead, in addition to varioliform scarring, we found various unusual clinical manifestati ons: burn-like lesions and crusts, flexion contracture of the digitum, and ear lobe mutilation. The ear lobe mutilation, which had not been reported previously in HV, was especially interesting.