Oral metronidazole, an effective treatment for Sweet's syndrome in a patient with associated inflammatory bowel disease.

Abstract

A 39-year-old woman with chronic, recurrent Sweet's syndrome (acute febrile neutrophilic dermatosis) and possible Crohn's disease was successfully treated with oral metronidazole. After 4 years of recurrent skin lesions which involved the hands and face, our patient developed genital and perianal ulcerations which were also histopathologically characterized by a neutrophilic infiltrate. In addition, she had a nondeforming polyarthritis that accompanied recurrences of her skin lesions. The patient was given oral metronidazole, an agent frequently used for perianal Crohn's disease, and achieved complete resolution of the perianal and perineal ulcers, the cutaneous lesions of Sweet's syndrome and the associated polyarthritis.