[Prognosis and prevention of white atrophy]

White atrophy, defined by Milian, is a smooth ivory white plaque, slightly depressed, of variable dimensions, and surrounded by a pigmented telangiectasic area, several millimetres across. It is usually localised in the lower limbs and mostly affects middle-aged women. It is a symptom with multiple aetiopathology. It is to be bound in isolation, or forming part of the clinical picture of various affections caused by degeneration in the cutaneous vascularization. Sometimes it causes ulceration resistant to the available treatments. Some authors suggest an immunological pathology of vascular occlusion. Others consider that it is result of a localized disorder of coagulation or fibrinolysis.