Clinical features and etiology of patients with erythema ab igne: A retrospective multicenter study

The aim of this study was to investigate the demographic and clinical features, etiology of patients with erythema ab igne (EAI) who presented to our clinics.

The present study was conducted on 71 patients who were admitted to our dermatology clinics between April 2018 and June 2019 and were diagnosed with EAI by clinical or histopathological examination. Age, gender, localization of lesions, and etiologic causes of lesions were recorded.

Of the 71 patients, 48 (67.6%) were women and 23 (32.4%) were men. The mean age of the patients was 28.6 ± 10.4 years. Most of the lesions were localized (60.6%, n = 43) on the anterior aspect of both legs. Among the etiological reasons, 53 (74.6%) patients had exposure to heater, 14 (19.7%) patients had exposure to stove, 2 (2.8%) patients had laptop use, 1 (1.4%) patient had tandoor contact, and 1 (1.4%) patient had exposure to hot water bag. One patient was diagnosed with bullous EAI.

In conclusion, EAI was also more common in females and lower extremities, which is in accordance with the literature. However, the mean age of occurrence in our study is younger when compared with that in the literature. One case of EAI due to the use of tandoor in our study has not been reported previously. It should be kept in mind that bullous EAI may develop in patients with diabetes mellitus.