[Acute febrile neutrophilic dermatosis Sweet's syndrome]

Acute febrile neutrophilic dermatosis was diagnosed in three middle-aged women. It started characteristically one to three weeks after infection of the upper respiratory tract with sudden fever and painful, inflammatory, multiform skin lesions. There was marked leucocytosis and neutrophilia. The disease is characterized by dense, perivascular, neutrophil-granulocytic infiltrates associated with lymphocytic-histocytic reactions at the margins. Site and dynamics of the histological changes suggest an immune-complex disease. However, direct immunofluorescence has not given any characteristic findings. In general the prognosis is good, the disease rapidly responding to systemic glucocorticoids. But there are also spontaneous remissions, as in two of the described cases.