PYODERMA-GANGRENOSUM AND MALIGNANT PYODERMA IN NIGERIA

Five patients (four black Nigerian males and one Polynesian) with pyoderma gangrenosum (PG) were seen between May 1974 and March 1984, at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Kaduna, Nigeria. Their age range was 12-42 years (mean 25.6 years). The female expatriate Polynesian patient had PG localized to the upper back while the other four patients had severe and extensive PG lesions. Local cleansing and dressing of the ulcers combined with appropriate systemic antibiotics produced healing in two of these patients. The empirical addition of dapsone and rifampicin led to complete healing in two others, but only transient remission in one patient who, after 22 years of disease activity, died at home from an aggressive and accelerated form of the disease best described as 'malignant pyoderma' gangrenosum.