Observations:
Pemphigus vegetans is very rare in children. There are still no standard recommendations for treatment of childhood pemphigus. Although steroids are often considered to be the first-line treatment, some patients fail to respond. We report a 12 year-old Turkish boy with neumann type pemphigus vegetans. The patient was received 2 mg/kg/day of oral prednisone and azathiopurine 50 mg/day for one month but new lesions still developed. Therefore dapsone 50 mg/day was started and after one week vesicular lesions stopped and skin condition rapidly improved. Azathiopurine was stopped and prednisolone was tapered off. The lesions completely resolved after 4 weeks and dapsone was discontinued after two months. One year after stopping dapsone, the patient showed no new lesions. Cases that do not respond well to steroids, dapsone which is an excellent second-line treatment, may be used for pemphigus vegetans in childhood.
Keywords: pemphigus vegetans, children, dapsone