Korean J Dermatol.  2022 Nov;60(9):566-575.

Clinicopathological Study of Urticarial Vasculitis: A Single-Center Study with Sixty-Five Patients in Korea

• Kim JS
• Koo DW
• Lee JS

Abstract

Background
Urticarial vasculitis (UV) is a rare disorder that can be diagnosed with clinical and histopathologic studies. There are classical clinical criteria; however, histopathological evidence is required for a definite diagnosis. Few studies have reported on the clinical and histological features of UV.
Objective
To analyze the clinical and histopathologic features of patients diagnosed with UV at a single center in the Republic of Korea.
Methods
We performed a retrospective study of the medical records, clinical photographs, and histopathological slides of patients who visited the Department of Dermatology at Daejeon Eulji Medical Center for urticarial wheals or purpuric plaques lasting more than 24 hours from January 2013 to October 2021.
Results
A total of 65 patients and 95 slides were analyzed. Clinically, most patients had wheal-like plaquedominant lesions (55 patients, 84.6%) rather than purpura and presented with pruritus. In the histopathological study, lymphocytic vasculitis (65 of 69 slides, 94.2%) was more dominant than leukocytoclastic vasculitis. However, its severity was milder than that of leukocytoclastic vasculitis.
Conclusion
This study performed a more in-depth clinical and histological analysis of UV, and histologically, it showed more diversity than previously known leukocytoclastic vasculitis. This might be used as basic research data for more large-scale studies of UV in the future.

Keyword

Leukocytoclastic vasculitis; Lymphocytic vasculitis; Urticarial vasculitis