Abstract
Syphilitic alopecia (SA) is a rare skin manifestation in secondary syphilis and sometimes indistinguishable from other alopecia. SA is of 2 types, symptomatic and essential, and 3 clinical types, moth-eaten or patchy pattern, diffuse pattern and a combination of both. SA in our case indicated symptomatic SA with moth-eaten hairloss. A 46-year-old Japanese homosexual man experienced hairloss followed by the pruritic skin rash. Physical examination of the scalp showed diffusely spread papulosquamous erythema and incomplete hairloss around the lesions. The scalp lesions appeared as “moth-eaten alopecia”. Serological examination for syphilis and HIV were positive. Thus, SA complicated with HIV infection was diagnosed. He was treated with a single perioral dose of ampicillin for 4 weeks, then his condition improved rapidly and hair regrowth occurred. HIV-infected persons show a high incidence of syphilis. Therefore, HIV test should be considered for patients with alopecia.
Highlights
Syphilis and HIV are a sexually transmitted infection and the number of the cases complicated by them is demonstrated to increase recently
We present the case of a 46-year-old Japanese homosexual man with moth-eaten symptomatic Syphilitic alopecia (SA) complicated by HIV infection
Association with HIV HIV-infected persons show a high incidence of syphilis, probably because the incidence of HIV infection in patients with syphilis is high [6]
Summary
Syphilis and HIV are a sexually transmitted infection and the number of the cases complicated by them is demonstrated to increase recently. Syphilis presents various manifestations indistinguishable from other skin diseases. SA is a rare skin manifestation in secondary syphilis with an incidence of 2.9% - 11.2% [1] [2]. How to cite this paper: Fukui, T., Sakuraba, Y., Harada, K., Nakano, H. and Sawamura, D. (2016) Moth-Eaten Symptomatic Syphilitic Alopecia Associated with Human Immunodeficiency Virus—A Case Report. Case Reports in Clinical Medicine, 5, 188-190. It is classified into a few types and is sometimes misdiagnosed. We present the case of a 46-year-old Japanese homosexual man with moth-eaten symptomatic SA complicated by HIV infection
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