Rosacea and ulcerative colitis: a possible association.

Although rosacea was formerly believed to be associated with gastrointestinal upsets, no one any longer finds a significant association between rosacea and the intestinal tract. We describe four patients with a combination of ulcerative colitis and rosacea. In all four, ulcerative colitis preceded the onset of severe papulopustular rosacea, and we therefore feel that the severity of rosacea could have been due to the associated bowel disorder. In one, the severity and poor initial response of rosacea to treatment was clearly related to the activity of the ulcerative colitis, and the rosacea improved only after proctocolectomy. While it is possible that this purported association is fortuitous, we report these cases in the hope that others may have seen this combination of diseases, to our knowledge previously unreported.