Dermatitis herpetiformis in Japan: an update.

BACKGROUND

Although dermatitis herpetiformis (DH) is a relatively common disease in Caucasian populations, it is rare in Asian populations including the Japanese. We encountered a Japanese case of DH which showed granular IgA and C3 deposits in the papillary dermis and which was associated with gluten-sensitive enteropathy but no HLA-B8/DR3/DQ2.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study is to describe the characteristics of Japanese DH cases, since most of them have been reported in Japanese language and dermatologists outside Japan are not familiar with the characteristics of Japanese DH.

METHODS

We have reviewed all 34 Japanese DH cases reported previously.

RESULTS

We found several features of Japanese DH compared with Caucasian DH, such as a high frequency of the fibrillar pattern, rarity of gluten-sensitive enteropathy and an absence of the HLA-B8/DR3/DQ2 haplotype.

CONCLUSION

There might be significant differences in pathophysiology between Caucasian and Japanese DH cases.