Lack of specific immunological disease pattern in vulvar lichen sclerosus

The literature suggests that autoantibody formations and disturbances in cellular or humoral immunities are relevant immunological events in lichen sclerosus (LS). We examined 39 patients (age range: 7-81 years) enrolled in this experimental immunopathology study and treated for vulvar LS. In the serum, we used 88 clinical immunology parameters to evaluate the immunological patterns, i.e., autoimmune phenomena, humoral immunity, cellular immunity, and inflammation. The analyses permitted direct comparison of the measured distributions of alternative data. We found that all pathological findings of single immunological events followed a random distribution without any positive or negative trend or a distribution with a negative trend. There was a lack of correlation between the majority of cases and the presence of pathological findings (confidence intervals 0.950 and 0.999). Combinations of two or more of the four patterns did not improve the outcomes (confidence intervals 0.950 and 0.999). However, abnormalities in systemic immune parameters implying system impairments might have occurred long before the patients with such a chronic disease presented to the clinic. This may be especially true of such diseases as vulvar LS, where local skin scarring might represent a local tissue response secondary to an initial insult by immune or other processes. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.