Localized unilateral hyperhidrosis--a clinical and laboratory study.

Abstract

Summary.— Three case of unilateral idiopathic hyperhidrosis are described. Two of the lesions were congenital; the thrid occurred in later life. Quantitative sweat collections demonstrated that the sweat glands in the lesion were hyperresponsive to those stimuli, which normally evoked sweating in the skin sites where the lesions occurred. Hyper-responsiveness of the sweat glands to cholinergic stimuli was also demonstrated, and histology revealed greatly enalrged glands. These results suggest that the hyperhidrosis is due to Increased glandular mass, although sweat gland hypersensitivity could notberuled out as an additional contributing factor to the hyperhidrosis. Local anticholinergic therapy was found to besuccessful in the treatment of all 3 patients.