Henoch-Schönlein purpura in two brothers imprisoned in the same jail: presentation two months apart

We present two brothers who came to us with similar complaints within a two-month interval and who were diagnosed as having Henoch-Schönlein purpura. Interestingly, the two brothers were prisoners in the same jail. In addition, we shall review the small number of familial Henoch-Schönlein purpura cases that have been reported in the literature to date. Our two patients exhibited arthritis and/or arthralgia, purpuric skin lesions, abdominal pain and hemiaturia, and were treated with steroids. We did not detect the presence of any inciting agent and hypothesize that an undefined factor present in the shared environment might have triggered the disease in two subjects with a similar genetic background.