Linear IgA bullous dermatosis in one of two piroxicam-induced eruptions: a distinct direct immunofluorescence trend revealed by the literature.

BACKGROUND: The report focuses first on two patients with piroxicam-induced bullous eruption, one whose disease was diagnosed as linear IgA bullous dermatosis (LABD) and the other with no disease-specific immunologic findings using immunofluorescence methods. A review of the literature points to a distinctive direct immunofluorescence feature of drug-induced LABD cases.

OBJECTIVE: Our purposes were to focus on divergent piroxicam reactions and to compare immunofluorescence findings in our and other reported drug-induced LABD cases to randomly occurring LABD cases.

METHODS: Direct and indirect immunofluorescence methods were used to study biopsy and serum samples from both cases and biopsy specimens of 40 other LABD cases.

RESULTS: Tense blisters developed in two patients medicated with piroxicam. Immunofluorescence studies demonstrated deposits of IgA at the basement membrane zone (BMZ) in case 1 and only non-disease-specific fibrin deposits at the BMZ in case 2. Within 1 month of discontinuation of piroxicam, all lesions were gone in both patients.

CONCLUSION: In LABD cases proven by direct immunofluorescence, (1) the index of suspicion of drug induction should be higher in cases with only IgA and no IgG in the BMZ; (2) possibly up to two thirds of all LABD cases may be drug induced; and (3) the negative immunofluorescence findings in case 2 and other cases reported in the literature suggest that LABD is one of several host responses in drug-induced blistering diseases.