All patients at the Medical College of Wisconsin Affiliated Hospitals with a new diagnosis of bullous pemphigoid (BP) between May 1, 1997 and September 1, 2002 were included in this study. The age at onset, date of death or date of last follow-up visit, mode of treatment, co-morbidities, and initial and follow-up hospitalizations were noted. Thirty-eight new patients were identified and complete follow-up data were obtained on 37 of the patients. Patients were followed a minimum of 1 y or until the time of death. The mean duration of follow-up was 20 mo. Kaplan-Meier analysis of our population indicated a 1-y survival probability of 88.96% (standard error 5.21%), with a 95% confidence interval (75.6%, 94.2%). This survival rate was considerably higher than that recently reported in several studies from Europe (29%-41% first year mortality). Although the age at onset and co-morbidities of our patients were similar to those in the European studies, the rate of hospitalization of our patients was much lower than that of patients from Europe (1.5 d per patient vs 11-25 d per patient). This study suggests that differences in practice patterns may be an important factor in the reduced mortality rate in US BP patients compared with Europe.
The coexistence of enchondromas and vascular lesions characterizes the principal feature of a rare congenital condition known as Maffucci syndrome. We present a 20-year-old male with a mosaic distribution of vascular malformations and atrophic overlying dermis and subcutis. Enchondroma and multiple periosteal chondromas of the ipsilateral limb led to the working diagnosis of Maffucci syndrome. Of interest, this patient also has a history of congenital fibrosarcoma with concomitant thrombocytopenia. To our knowledge this is the first report of this constellation of findings, which may represent a form of mesenchymal mosaicism analogous to the Blaschkoid distribution of other genodermatoses.
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