Alcohol-induced vasculitis

You are here:

Alcohol-induced vasculitis: case report and commentary.

Abuabara K, Samimi S, Chu EY, Bluebond ND, James WD, Merkel PA.

J Am Acad Dermatol. 2014 Feb;70(2):e42-3. doi: 10.1016/j.jaad.2013.10.014.

In this interesting case report, the authors depict the story of a 26 year old woman developing erythematous macules and papules occuring a few hours after consuming an alcoholic beverage.
The lesions go away spontaneously a few days later.
A few hours after giving alcohol, the authors performed a biopsy which came out as a vasculitis.
After hypothesizing how the vasculitis appears, a comparison with drug-induced vasculitis is made.
Although the cause is unknown, indirect rather than a direct effect of alcohol is more in play. Indeed our findings that alcohol can induce many diseases: Cirrhosis, Infections, Jaundice (Icterus), Malnutrition, Pancreatitis, Porphyria Cutanea Tarda, Pruritus (Itch), Skin Aging, Skin Cancer, Urticaria and Anaphylactoid reactions.

To read more about the effects of alcohol on the skin, click here.

For full access to the free article in the Journal of American Academy of Dermatology (JAAD), click here.

JAAD: click here to view abstracts from the current edition, articles in press, most cited articles and top 25 articles.

Contributors

Dr Christophe Hsu – dermatologist. Geneva, Switzerland