Dapsone and Autoimmune Bullous Disorders

Autoimmune blistering skin disease (AIBD) is a term used to describe a heterogeneous group of cutaneous and mucosal diseases with significant morbidity and mortality. A range of ocular complications can occur in patients with AIBD, due to the underlying blistering disease or as side effects of the medications used to treat these diseases. The most common ocular presentation of AIBD is a chronic conjunctivitis, which can progress to conjunctival fibrosis and eventually chronic cicatricial conjunctivitis. Cicatrisation leads to ocular complications that include symblepharon, fornix foreshortening, entropion, trichiasis, corneal damage and neovascularisation. Clinical features in the eye overlap between the types of AIBD. Early recognition and treatment of the disease is essential to prevent irreversible scarring and progression to blindness in certain cases.