Dress Syndrome: Time to Define Treatment Guidelines.

ABSTRACT

Background: DRESS (Drug rash with eosinophilia and systemic Symptoms) syndrome is a drug hypersensitivity syndrome which begins around 2- 6 weeks after exposure to a drug. If treated early, can recover completely and much of morbidity can be avoided. Case A patient with history of taking carbamazepine for epilepsy, presented with typical features of maculopapular erythematous rash, exfoliative dermatitis and edema over upper and lower extremities, face, and trunk. He had eosinophilia, lymphadenopathy and elevated liver enzymes. His condition rapidly improved after withdrawing carbamazepine and starting steroids. Discussion: The rapid recovery with steroids in this case and in a few cases reported previously also suggests a need of RCT to assess steroids as an established modality for management of this severe but curable entity.