Advertisement
pityriasis rosea

Pityriasis Rosea in Dark-Skinned Children

AHDI AMER, MD and HOWARD FISCHER, MD
Wayne State University

Dr Amer is associate professor of pediatrics and Dr Fischer is professor of pediatrics in
the The Carman and Ann Adams department of pediatrics at Wayne State University
School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit.

KIRK BARBER, MD, FRCPC––Series Editor
Alberta Children’s Hospital

Dr Barber is a consultant dermatologist at Alberta Children’s Hospital and clinical associate professor of medicine and community health sciences at the University of Calgary in Alberta.

Volume 10 - Issue 1 - January 2011


Pityriasis Rosea in Dark-Skinned Children

A Different Presentation From That Described in Textbooks

In the course of studying azithromycin as a treatment for pityriasis rosea (PR)1 which we found does not work, we collected much data on the distribution, morphology, and course of the lesions.2 We also amassed many photos, some of which appear in this Photo Essay. These photos highlight the various presentations of PR in African American children, which we discovered are often different from the standard “textbook” descriptions.

We followed the natural history of PR in 50 African American children in the United States.2 The data included the presence and location of a herald patch, duration of lesions, number of lesions, types and distribution of lesions, and presence of pruritus. The PR lesions involved the trunk in all patients, neck in 44%, face in 30%, arms and forearms in 60%, thighs and legs in 54%, pelvis or groin in 12%, and scalp in 8%. Almost all (90%) of our patients had pruritus. See Figures 1 to 7 for the clear-cut differences between our results and what pediatricians read in textbooks about PR. It is worth keeping in mind that the usual description of PR applies mainly to white patients.■