Reporting of drug eruptions: The national pharmacovigilance program

Abstract

In the daily drudgery of clinical practice, every now and then we come across a patient who is sure that a particular drug is affecting his or her skin in a peculiar way. However, to our brains, trained to recognize common drug eruptions, it seems fantastic that any drug could cause side effects such as digitate dermatosis, [1] mycosis fungoides, [2] leukemoid reaction, [3] leg ulcer [4] or even fairness! [5] As we understand the myriad ways in which drugs affect the skin, such unusual reactions can be explained with increasing ease. But, to recognize new patterns of adverse drug reactions (a better term than eruptions as there may be no rash) we must increase our index of suspicion, particularly with novel classes of drugs.