Cutaneous adverse drug reactions: Kids are not just little people

Cutaneous adverse drug reactions are a common complication of drug therapy and affect patients of all ages. Despite the daunting frequency at which these reactions occur, there are no scientific contributions comparing cutaneous adverse drug reactions in adults to those occurring in children. Literature delineating such differences is important given that there are significant age-related differences in the pharmacokinetics of many drugs and that most of the package-insert data on adverse drug reactions are based on preclinical trials that do not include children as participants. This contribution attempts to bridge the literature gap by examining five cutaneous adverse drug reactions that occur in both adults and children, highlighting the many types of age-related differences, with a special emphasis on comparisons of (1) epidemiology, (2) etiology, (3) clinical presentation, (4) workup, and (5) treatment.