Adult blaschkitis (Grosshans-Marot disease) with antinuclear antibodies

E. Grosshans and L. Marot first described blaschkitis in 1990 as a linear i nflammatory dermatitis following lines of Blaschko in an adult patient. We report another case which occurred in a 38-year-old woman who developed an extensive, linear, erythematosquamous dermatitis involving the face, all li mbs and the trunk. The patient's serum tested positive for antinuclear anti bodies at a dilution of 1:640. The lesions regressed spontaneously within 4 weeks. Blaschkitis is a distinct entity which corresponds neither to a kno wn inflammatory dermatitis in the lines of Blaschko nor to an hamartoma nor to an X-linked disease. Cutaneous antigenic mosaicism,the expression of wh ich might be induced by a viral infection, could trigger this localized inf lammatory T-cell response. This hypothesis relates blaschkitis to other cut aneous autoimmune diseases, as does the presence of antinuclear antibodies. We therefore suggest renaming this type of inflammatory dermatitis Grossha ns-Marot disease in honour to the dermatologists who first described the en tity.