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Risk of lymphoma in patients with dermatitis herpetiformis
B Sigurgeirsson1, B A Agnarsson, B Lindelöf
1Department of Dermatology, Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.
Objective:
To provide accurate estimates of the risk of lymphoma in patients with dermatitis herpetiformis.
Design:
Comparison of observed and expected incidence of cancer in patients with dermatitis herpetiformis.
Subjects:
976 patients aged 4 to 97 years with no clinical signs of coeliac disease who were admitted to hospital between 1963 and 1983.
Setting:
Data from Swedish Cancer Registry.
Main Outcome Measures:
Incidence and type of cancer.
Results:
106 cancers were diagnosed in 94 patients. The relative risk was 1.4 (95% confidence interval 1.1 to 1.7) in male patients and 1.2 (0.8 to 1.7) in female patients. When the individual cancer sites were analysed a significant risk was found only for malignant, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in male patients, with a relative risk of 5.4 (2.2 to 11.1).
Conclusions:
The risk of lymphoma is greater in male patients with dermatitis herpetiformis, and this calls for increased surveillance in these patients.