Conjunctival involvement in familial chronic benign pemphigus (Hailey-Hailey disease)

Abstract

A 25-year-old woman with a 1-year history of malodorous, red, and eroded lesions in frictional sites was seen in the dermatology department. She did not give a family history of a similar condition. She had an 18-month-old baby and her initial complaint was of genital pruritus with profuse vaginal discharge which appeared within 2 months of delivery. She was treated for candidal vaginitis but pruritus persisted and skin lesions occurred on both sides of the groin. The lesions subsided as long as the local treatment for candidal vaginitis was continued, but recurred more than three times in a year, each time with additional and more severe lesions involving the axillae, retroauricular sites, and scalp. She received no specific treatment during this time and her complaint about the eyes was the reason she was referred to a dermatologist.