2009 Volume 119 Issue 10 Pages 1979-1984
An 80-year-old woman was referred to our clinic with the complaint of a two month history of bullous and erosive lesions on her trunk and extremities and of a one month history of erosive lesions on her oral mucosa. Western blotting using her serum revealed autoantibodies against the γ2 and α3 chains of laminin 5. She was diagnosed with mucous membrane pemphigoid and treated with prednisolone combined with minocycline, colchicine, diaminodiphenylsulfone (DDS), and azathioprine, but her mucosal lesions did not respond to these therapies. She died of septic shock eight months after initiation of the treatment. A total of 9 cases of mucous membrane pemphigoid with autoantibodies against γ2 chain of laminin 5, including the present case, were found in our search of the literature; all of them suffered from skin lesions as well as mucous membrane le sions.
