Neutrophilic Figurate Erythema of Infancy

Abstract

We report here a new case of neutrophilic figurate erythema of infancy in a 1-year and 9-month-old white boy. Neutrophilic figurate erythema of infancy is a rare inflammatory dermatosis which is part of the figurate inflammatory dermatoses of infancy and is considered a variant of annular erythema of infancy. The disease is clinically characterized by annular erythematous lesions, sometimes with a polycyclic configuration, and histologically by a dermal neutrophilic infiltration with leukocytoclasia. Differential diagnosis mainly includes clear-cut severe diseases with a well-known etiology, such as neonatal lupus erythematosus and its variant erythema gyratum atrophicans transiens neonatale, erythema chronicum migrans and erythema marginatum rheumaticum, and diseases of unknown origin and with less clear limits, such as erythema annulare centrifugum and its variant familial annular erythema. Anamnesis, laboratory findings, clinical features, and histology allow the correct diagnosis and therefore, having excluded severe diseases, parents should be reassured as neutrophilic figurate erythema of infancy, as the annular erythema of infancy, is a benign disease, in most cases unassociated with other conditions and usually self-limiting over a few months, even though a chronic course may rarely occur. Our case was characterized by a chronic persistent course and by a complete resolution of the lesions only during febrile episodes.