Bullous pemphigoid in a 106-years old female

Bullous pemhigoid (BP) is an autoimmune subepidermal blistering disease, usually occurring in the elderly. In Europe the incidence of BP has doubled in the last 10 years. The disease has a chronic relapsing course and a relatively benign prognosis. An increasing number of publications report altered expression of a number of cytokines. However, at the present it is not possible to establish a specific role for them in the disease. We report a case of a centenarian woman with a BP occurrence in otherwise optimal health conditions. Besides the usual biochemical investigations, plasma concentrations of a number of cytokines were evaluated during the disease course (relapse and remission). The majority of the measured cytokines were elevated in the active phase of the disease and returned to values similar to those presented by a group of apparently healthy subjects of similar age during the remission. This case could be useful to better understand the role of cytokines in autoimmune skin diseases of the aging.