Diagnostic and therapeutic errors in certain dermatoses of the vulva.

Abstract

Medicine has been plagued for centuries with confusing terminology. Some misunderstanding arises from the perpetuation of numerous synonyms for fairly well-defined entities; however, there are a few diseases that per se are poorly or confusingly defined. Certain so-called precancerous dermatoses of the vulva fall in the latter category. The general practitioner, gynecologist, dermatologist, and others, such as the urologist and psychiatrist, have written on conditions of the vulva in their own journals in their own language. Even an authority common to all, Dorland's Medical Dictionary, is a victim of these muddied waters, e. g., kraurosis vulvae is called also leukokraurosis, leukoplakia vulvae, leucoplakic vulvitis and pruritus vulvae. The obscurity as to etiology, pathology, and nomenclature, and, consequently the lack of progress in therapy of these lesions are due, we feel, to lack of concerted and cooperative study by persons in the different specialties who have written about them. Several authors