The Turkish Journal of Pediatrics
2013 , Vol 55 , Num 5
Scabies mimicking mastocytosis in two infants
1Department of Dermatology, Bozok University Faculty of Medicine, Yozgat, and Departments of 2Dermatology, and
4Pathology, Erciyes University Faculty of Medicine, Kayseri, and 3Department of Dermatology, Acıbadem Fulya Hospital,
İstanbul, Turkey. E-mail: drecolgecen@hotmail.com
Scabies is a common parasitic human infection in infants and children.
However, diagnostic pitfalls are frequent in infants, in whom the clinical
presentation is usually atypical and different from that in adults. In nodular
scabies, lesions may be clinically or histologically misdiagnosed as Langerhans
cell histiocytosis, insect bite reaction, non-Langerhans cell histiocytosis,
lymphoma, or urticaria pigmentosa.
We report two misleading cases of young infants (10- and 12-month-old infants) who presented with pruritic brown-red lesions on their trunks and showing a positive Darier’s sign, suggestive of urticaria pigmentosa.
Keywords : scabies, mastocytosis, infant.