Erythroderma can be life-threatening, primarily because of its metabolic burden and complications. It is mandatory to establish its etiopathology in order to facilitate precise and definitive management. This disorder may be the morphologic presentation of a variety of cutaneous and systemic diseases. Detailed history and thorough work-up is therefore essential. Management of erythroderma involves multi-disciplines with progress monitoring especially on signs and symptoms suggestive of acute skin failure induced complications. Early diagnosis and referral of erythroderma to centres with dermatological services is crucial and will directly affect the outcome of the patients.
Despite its severity not much work has been done to explore the barrier function in patients with erythroderma. This study compares TEWL between skin of healthy subjects and erythrodermic patients of various aetiologies and at different sites. We also assess TEWL between patients with acute and chronic erythroderma.
Drug eruptions from indeginous medicine is often difficult to diagnosis and confirm. It is known that a number of these now supplied by bomohs and Chinese sinsehs contain known drugs and are dispensed as tablets and capsules. We report 3 cases of adverse drug eruption to "Jamu", a Malay herb. A particular brand, "Jamu Indonesia, Toko Air Pancur", from Johor Bahru, Malaysia, is especially recommended for "sakit pinggang" or backache. The cases occurred between January and February 1985, and all had taken brown kidney shaped tablets. The adverse reactions were moderately severe. Two had erythroderma with hepatitis, and one, Steven Johnson Syndrome. Analysis of this jamu for analgesics led to the discovery of adulteration with phenylbutazone and diazepam. Records from local cases from 1974-1984 showed that 8 other patients, all Chinese had adverse cutaneous eruptions from phenylbutazone, oxybutazone and propyphenazone. The skin manifestations were erythroderma (2 cases), vasculitis (2 cases) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (4 cases). Those with toxic epidermal necrolysis had 100% mortality.
Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder affecting approximately 50 million people worldwide. Antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) are commonly used to treat the disease depending, mainlyon the type of seizure. However, the useof AEDs mayalso lead to cutaneous adverse drug reactions (cADR) such as toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN), Stevens-Johnsonsyndrome (SJS), exfoliative dermatitis (ED) and drug‐induced hypersensitivity syndrome/drug reaction with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms (DIHS/DRESS), which are unwanted comorbidities in epilepsy. It was first discoveredthat the HLA-B*15:02 allele was strongly associatedwith carbamazepine(CBZ)-induced SJS/TEN amongHan Chinese and this ledto the discovery of other HLAallelesand cytochrome P450 (CYP) genes that were significantly associatedwith various AED-inducedcADRsacross variouspopulations. This mini-reviewis an update on the latest findings ofthe involvement of various HLA alleles and CYP alleles in cADRs caused by CBZ, phenytoin (PHT), oxcarbazepine (OXC) and lamotrigine(LTG) in different case-control studies around the world. From our review, we found that CBZ-and PHT-induced cADRsweremore commonly reportedthan the other AEDs.Therefore,there were morerobust pharmacogenetics studies related to these AEDs. OXC-and LTG-induced cADRswereless commonly reported,and somore studies are needed to validate the reported association of the newer reported HLA alleles with theseAEDs. It is also importantto considerthe allelic frequency within a given population before concludingthe use of thesealleles as genetic markers to prevent AED-induced cADR. Overall, the current body of research pointto a combination of alleles as a better pharmacogenetic marker comparedto the use of a single gene as a genetic marker for AED-induced cADR.