Treatment of ocular cicatricial pemphigoid with sulphasalazine

Purpose: To report on three patients with biopsy-proven ocular cicatricial pemphigoid successfully treated with sulphasalazine. Methods:Three case reports. Results : A 71-year-old man, treated with dapsone for ocular cicatricial pe mphigoid stopped his treatment because of an allergy to this drug. Oral sul phasalazine, 2.5 grams daily was successfully used as an alternative treatm ent (3 month follow-up). Two patients, aged 71 and 84 year old, were treate d with dapsone for ocular cicatricial pemphigoid. Both patients stopped the ir treatment because of drug induced hemolytic anemia. They then received o ral sulphasalazine, 4 grams daily. The disease was successfully controlled. In the first patient, sulphasalazine was discontinued after 13 months; and in the second patient no relapse was seen after a 16 month follow-up perio d. No adverse side effect of sulphasalazine occurred. Conclusion: Sulphasalazine, that has already been proven to be effective fo r Crohn's disease, also can be used in ocular cicatricial pemphigoid. Howev er, further studies including a larger series of patients along with a long er follow-up are necessary to confirm the efficacy of sulphasalazine in thi s disease.