Synthetic antimalarial drugs in chronic discoid lupus erythematosus and light eruptions.

Abstract

PROMISING results with the use of quinacrine (Mepacrine; Atabrine) in chronic discoid lupus erythematosus were reported in 1951 by Page.¹His findings have, in the main, been confirmed by subsequent investigators.^*A recent paper⁵quotes a report by Popoff & Kutinscheff who presented six cases so treated at a meeting of the Sofia Dermatological Society in 1941. In the study herein reported it was decided to treat not only chronic discoid lupus erythematosus but also light eruptions of the summer prurigo type with a series of synthetic antimalarial drugs. Both diseases in this area show a similar seasonal incidence, and after preliminary trials it was decided to treat all cases in the summer of 1952 with quinacrine (3-chloro-7-methoxy-9-[1 methyl-4-diethylaminobutylamino] acridine dihydrochloride) and those in the summer of 1953 with chloroquine (7-chloro-4-[4-diethylamino-1-methylbutylamino] quinoline) diphosphate. Primaquine (8-[4-amino-1-methylbutylamino]-6-methoxyquinoline) diphosphate had also been tried in two cases in our