title: Smoker's boils.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  About 90% of patients with hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) are smokers. A crucial eliciting role of smoking appears to be certain. In order to increase the awareness of this avoidable major cause of the disease and to facilitate the recognition of incipient disorder, we propose the more specific term 'smoker's boils' for HS lesions of patients who are smokers.
  
  
  METHODS
  Clinical pictures of early lesions are presented. For the exceptional cases occurring in nonsmokers, the traditional name HS, representing an umbrella term, is adequate.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The renaming of HS as smoker's boils has the practical advantage that a correct diagnosis can be made at an incipient stage of the disorder. If patients stop smoking at such an early stage of HS, they most likely have a chance that this devastating disease will not progress.
authors: Department of Dermatology, University Medical Center Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany. rudolf.happle@uniklinik-freiburg.de
authors: Rudolf
authors: R
authors: Happle
authors: Arne
authors: A
authors: König