[Sclerema (clinical review apropos of 20 cases)]

Twenty cases of children with Sclerema observed at a Pediatric Service during five years are presented. Their clinical and laboratory traits are integrated in a dermatosis appearing after various and usually serious complications. In the children observed the most frequent finding was represented by sepsis, some of them with disseminated intravascular coagulation syndrome, diarrhoea with dehydration. The therapy applied, fundamentally was based on parenteral solutions, antibiotics and corticoids, was directed by those diseases and not by the presence of sclerema, which however appeared influenced by the supply of the latterly mentioned medicaments. Microscopic disturbances are discussed too, and a reference is made to the incriminabea pathogenic mechanisms.