Benign mucosal pemphigoid

Gurshan K Bedi, Gurvinder P Thami, Amrinder J Kanwar

 Chandigarh, India

Correspondence Address:
Gurshan K Bedi
Chandigarh
India

To the Editor

We read with interest the report "benign mucous membrane pemphigoid simulating genitoulcerative disease" (Mittal et al, Ind J Dermatol Venereol Leprol 1996;62:197-198). It took us sometime to understand that the authors were describing a patient with benign mucosal pemphigoid. We feel that Dermatology literature is already crowded with so many entities. In this context the origin of a new name for a disorder which already has many synonyms is not appropriate. We hope that the authors have ′reported′ a patient of benign mucosal pemphigoid. There is no such entity as benign mucous membrane pemphigoid.

It would be interesting to know what differential diagnoses were considered in this patient. As is well known, one cannot reach a diagnosis of any vesiculo bullous disorder without resorting to immunofluorescence studies. It is not clear whether these were carried out in this patient or not. In the absence of such investigations we find it difficult to believe that the authors have really come across a patient of benign mucosal pemphigoid localized to the genitals. The presence or absence of scarring clinically has also not been commented upon, though the histopathology revealed dermal fibrosis.