2019 Volume 129 Issue 6 Pages 1329-1337
Nine cases of eosinophilic fasciitis (EF) were retrospectively investigated. Eight cases were females, and their initial symptoms were lower leg edema in all of them. These female cases were presented to our hospital within 20 days after they noticed the symptom, which quickly disappeared without causing skin sclerosis after steroid therapy. In one male patient, who first arrived at our hospital more than one year after the initiation of the edema, skin sclerosis was already evident in his extremities and trunk, and steroid therapy did not improve his symptoms. Serum thymus and activation-regulated chemokaine (TARC) levels were markedly high in all the five cases examined. They were significantly reduced to the normal levels after the steroid therapy in four steroid-responded cases.
These results suggested that early introduction of steroid therapy is critical for preventing irreversible skin sclerosis and that serum TARC levels could be a useful clinical biomarker in EF.
