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A 42-year-old woman presented to the Department of Dermatology & Venereology, Virgen de las Nieves Hospital, Granada, Spain, in May 2015 with a severe pruritic rash and hair loss in both axillary regions. Physical examination showed skin coloured papules and alopecia [Figure 1A], which showed no fluorescence under a Wood’s lamp. Dermoscopy revealed hair follicle-centred papules, traumatised terminal hairs and blackheads [Figure 1B]. The histology of the skin biopsy indicated an inflammatory infiltrate of lymphocytes affecting the follicle [Figure 1C] and the obstruction of the eccrine and apocrine sweat glands [Figure 1D]. The patient was diagnosed with Fox-Fordyce (FF) disease. Following treatment with tretinoin (0.05%), she demonstrated moderate symptomatic improvement.
Comment
FF disease is a rare and chronic condition usually seen in adolescent women which affects the apocrine gland-bearing areas. The...