A Japanese case of the fibrillar type of dermatitis herpetiformis.
BACKGROUND
Although dermatitis herpetiformis (DH) is a relatively common disease in Caucasian populations, this disease is very rare in Asian populations including the Japanese.


RESULTS
We present a Japanese DH patient, who showed a fibrillar pattern of deposition of 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 or European DH revealed several interesting differences: high frequency of the fibrillar pattern, relatively high incidence of deposits of immunoglobulins other than IgA, rarity of gluten-sensitive enteropathy and HLA-B8/DR3 in Japanese DH.


CONCLUSIONS
The present study suggests that there may be a significant difference in pathophysiology between Caucasian and Japanese DH patients.
Department of Dermatology, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
K
K
Shimizu
T
T
Hashimoto
T
T
Fukuda
K
K
Watanabe
A
A
Ishiko
H
H
Niizeki
H
H
Shimizu
J J
JJ
Zone
T
T
Nishikawa
D003176:Complement C3 / Q000378:metabolism; D003874:Dermatitis Herpetiformis / Q000276:immunology / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D015795:HLA-B8 Antigen / Q000378:metabolism; D015803:HLA-DR3 Antigen / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D007070:Immunoglobulin A / Q000378:metabolism; D007074:Immunoglobulin G / Q000378:metabolism; D007075:Immunoglobulin M / Q000378:metabolism; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008875:Middle Aged
D003176:Complement C3; D015795:HLA-B8 Antigen; D015803:HLA-DR3 Antigen; D007070:Immunoglobulin A; D007074:Immunoglobulin G; D007075:Immunoglobulin M