Dermatitis herpetiformis Duhring – evaluation of disease severity and tissue transglutaminase levels in 122 patients on dapsone therapy

Abstract

The aim of our study was to characterize the group of patients suffering from dermatitis herpetiformis Duhring (DH) and to make the statistical analysis of monitored parameters. We retrospectively analysed the data of 122 patients with DH (age, gender, the severity of DH, tissue transglutaminase antibodies IgA (IgA-TGA) level and dapsone dose). The mild form of DH was recorded in 69 patients (56.6%), the moderate form in 48 patients (39.3%) and the severe form in 5 patients (4.1%); 118 patients (96.7%) are on dapsone therapy, 3.2% of patients are only on gluten-free diet. The median of average IgA-TGA in the mild form is 6.25 U/ml, in the moderate form 14.45 U/ml and in the severe form 10.33 U/ml. Although the significant relation of the IgA-TGA to the disease severity was not confirmed, there is some trend in the increase of the IgA-TGA level from mild to moderate and severe form of DH.

Keywords

• dermatitis herpetiforms
• dapsone
• tissue transglutaminase iga antibodies (iga-tga)
• disease severity
• celiac disease
• gluten-free diet