LICHEN PLANUS IN THE NEGRO

Abstract

LICHEN planus in the Negro offers a challenge in its clinical diagnosis and interesting histologic characteristics in microscopic examination. Cutaneous eruptions in the Negro have often been clinically masked by the intensive content of melanin. Further, the pigmentation of eruptions in the Negro has often been increased and at other times diminished. Frequently lichen planus has been known to have been followed by vitiligo. SUMMARY OF LITERATURE Fox, 1 in 1910, presented a case of lichen planus in a Negro woman, which early showed large numbers of typical lichen planus papules, but later the typical eruption was replaced by increased pigmentation. Jacob, 2 in a study of 179 cases of lichen planus in St. Louis, observed only 5 cases in Negroes and stated that Gilchrist, at Johns Hopkins Dispensary in Baltimore, saw only a half-dozen cases in twenty years. He stated that the eruption was typical in every respect except