Scleredema of Buschke Successfully Treated With Electron Beam Therapy

A diabetic woman with soft tissue complex pathology

“…Other therapeutics are more or less successful: antioxidants, some local steroid injection, physical therapy. Regarding scleredema, certain attempts were adapted to cases: immunosuppressants, psoralen with ultraviolet -light (PUVA), tamoxifen, electron beam, physical therapies and so on [14,15]. For our patient having no complications of scleredema (restrictive dyspnea, shoulder motion disturbances) or evidence of malignancy, a strict glycemic control with periodical exams were considered.…”

Therapy resistant idiopathic scleredema: an underlying pathology not always present

“…Some type 3 patients appear to improve with better glycemic control. Numerous other therapies including cyclosporin, methotrexate, high-dose penicillin, corticosteroids, prostaglandin E1, D-penicillamine, intralesional hyaluronidase, systemic photochemotherapy with PUVA, bath-PUVA, UVA-1 phototherapy, electron-beam radiotherapy, and extracorporeal photopheresis have been tried in case reports or small case series which ended with limited effect (1,2,(6)(7)(8)(9)(10). Prognosis is largely dependent on the underlying etiology.…”

Radiotherapy of Benign Diseases—Scleredema Adultorum Buschke

“…However, in 50% of the cases described in the literature, the manifestation took several years to resolve [2]. In these difficult cases many different treatments have been proposed for scleredema, including systemic, topical or intralesional corticosteroids [15], thyroid hormones, pituitary extract, high-dose penicillin [19], immunosuppressants [12], different chemotherapies [23,28,32], antifibrotic therapy, and radiotherapy [3,4,15,20,22,33]. How- Angeli-Besson et al [3] report a remarkable functional improvement and stabilization of the illness using electron-beam therapy to a total dose of 20 Gy (10 × 2 Gy).…”

“…However, none of these treatment modalities have turned out to be consistently effective. Several publications describe radiation therapy as an effective treatment option [3,4,20,33].…”