Co-existent Dowling–Degos disease, reticulate acropigmentation of Kitamura, and acropigmentation of Dohi in two generations: An overlap or concept of a single disease?

Abstract

Reticulate pigmentary disorders (RPDs) are a group of rare autosomal dominant dermatoses with a distinctive clinical net-like pattern with specific arrangements and distributions in each entity. A forty-year-old female presented with asymptomatic, light and dark, macular lesions existing for over fifteen years with perioral scars and palmer pits and her twenty-year-old daughter beginning to develop similar lesions four years earlier. Cutaneous and histopathological examinations suggested a diagnosis of Dowling–Degos disease co-existent with reticulate acropigmentation of Kitamura in the mother and Dowling–Degos disease co-existent with acropigmentation of Dohi in the daughter. The co-existence of three infrequently encountered dermatoses with an irregular disease presentation within the family suggested the possibility of differing entities in the reticulate pigmentary group of disorders belonging to the diverse spectrums of the same disease. Key words: Reticulate pigmentary disorders, Dowling–Degos disease, Reticulate acropigmentation of Kitamura, Reticulate acropigmentation of Dohi