Sweet Syndrome in Two Children

Abstract

We report a 9-month-old girl and a 4-year-old boy with acute febrile neutrophilic dermatosis (Sweet syndrome). Both children were febrile, had leukocytosis, and exhibited lesions characteristic of Sweet syndrome. Both had an antecedent infection. Our evaluation and long-term follow-up of these children failed to reveal evidence of underlying malignancy or a chronic systemic illness typically encountered in Sweet syndrome. Of interest, the 4-year-old boy responded to systemic corticosteroids with remission, whereas the 9-month-old infant experienced flaring of the disease on successive attempts to taper the systemic corticosteroids. Systemic corticosteroid usage was associated with alteration in behavior in the 4-year-old and transient growth retardation in the 9-month-old. In both patients, the adverse effects resolved after discontinuation of the corticosteroids.

Nonbullous neutrophilic dermatosis: Sweet’s syndrome, neonatal lupus erythematosus, or both?

“…Classical Sweet's syndrome predominately affects women (30-60 years of age) and is often preceded by respiratory or gastrointestinal infection, inflammatory bowel disease or pregnancy. Sweet's syndrome has also been reported in children [4]. The youngest reported patients with Sweet's syndrome were two brothers, 10 and 15 days of age [5].…”

Acute febrile neutrophilic dermatosis (Sweet’s syndrome) in childhood and adolescence: two new patients and review of the literature on associated diseases

“…Twentyseven (42%) patients were categorized in the group "classic/idiopathic Sweet's syndrome". Thirteen (21%) of these presented without associated diseases (detailed data not shown [3,6,19,20,24,25,32,34,51,53,59]) and 14 patients (22%) were reported with transient diseases, mostly respiratory tract infections or otitis media [12,13,15,26,27,29,36,39,41,44,47,55]. These patients were not included in the detailed analysis and are not shown in Tables 2 and 3.…”

Sweet's syndrome associated with cellulitis

“…1 There is dysregulation of cytokine secretion such as interleukin-1, 3, 6, 8 and interferon-g. 1 Recent case reports of Sweet s syndrome in association with infections indicate the infections may be diagnosed 4-14 days before the appearance of the skin lesions of Sweet s, simultaneously or even subsequent to the skin eruption. 2,4,6,7 In our patient, cellulitis preceded the lesions by 5-6 days. As such, the timing of her infection in relation to the presentation of Sweet s syndrome suggested cellulitis was the precipitating factor.…”