Dermatology Glossary

Sweet’s syndrome

In 1964 Sweet described a syndrome, which he termed acute febrile neutrophilic dermatosis, consisting of painful, red, raised plaques and nodules that can appear anywhere on the skin surface but occur most commonly on the face and extremities. They are often asymmetric. Vesicles or pustules may cover the surface of the plaques. The plaques often expand peripherally with central clearing. Uncommonly, lesions may resemble lesions of pyoderma gangrenosum.
There is frequently an associated arthritis, conjunctivitis and episcleritis.
Pyrexia and neutrophilia are common.
Mucosal symptoms are more prominent in those cases that are associated with cancer.
Sweet syndrome is commonly associated with leukemia.
Much less commonly, it is seen with solid tumors such as adenocarcinoma, embryonal carcinoma of testes, ovarian carcinoma, gastric carcinoma, and adenocarcinoma of the prostate and rectum.

Treatment:

Dapsone
Colchicine
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatories
Doxycycline

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