[Apropos of the Mali syndrome]

The authors report two original cases of profuse pigmentation associated with proliferative lesions of the lower limbs, in patients with venous incompetence, suggestive if the syndrome described by Mali and al. in 1963. One case was in fact of Kaposi's disease associated with severe thrombocytopenia which was the cause of death, despite the use of Chloraminophene-Cortancyl. The other case was a woman with profuse pigmentation of the lower limbs associated with multiple disseminated lesions of allergic vasculitis, probably of drug origin. Suppression of the drug and rest led to a marked improvement in the lesions. Although very different from each other, both of these cases are suggestive of Mali's syndrome, but their treatment was totally opposite. The first case, a real vascular neoplasia, required the combination of antimitotic-steroid ; the second case, on the contrary, resolved with rest and a simple elastic bandage, like allcutaneous venous lesions, in particular Mali's syndrome.