title: Successful treatment with doxycycline and nicotinamide of two cases of persistent pemphigoid gestationis.
abstract: Pemphigoid gestationis (PG) is a rare dermal-epidermal autoimmune bullous disease of pregnancy and postpartum, which relapses more seriously and earlier during following pregnancies. PG also occurs in association with trophoblastic tumours or oral contraceptive treatment. The term 'persistent PG' represents the cases where active disease persists for months to many years after delivery. Four cases of persistent PG have been reported to date in the literature. So far, systemic cortico-steroids have been the main PG therapy and the use of cyclophosphamide, dapsone, pyridoxine, methotrexate, plasmapheresis or ritodrine has also been reported, with contradictory results. In this paper are described two patients with persistent PG who were successfully treated with doxycycline (200 mg/day) and nicotinamide (500 mg/day), a treatment that was demonstrated to be safe and efficacious in bullous pemphigoid.
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatological Sciences, University of Florence, Italy.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Amato
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Coronella
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Berti
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Gallerani
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Moretti
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Fabbri
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D004318:Doxycycline / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009536:Niacinamide / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D010391:Pemphigoid, Bullous / Q000188:drug therapy*; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications / Q000188:drug therapy*
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D009536:Niacinamide; D004318:Doxycycline