Treatment of pustular psoriasis in children with etretinate or acitretin

Thirteen cases of pustular psoriasis in children were treated with etretinate and acitretin,in which7cases were treated with etretinate,and5cases with acitretin,and1case was treated with etretinate first,four years later with acitretin.The initiating dosage(0.3～1mg /kg daily)could be abated per2weeks once while the patients condition was controlled,the maintenance dosage being0.1～0.2mg /kg daily,and the course of therapy was2months.The total response rate was77.8%in etretinate treatment,and83.3%in acitretin treatment.The time needed to descend fever and stop the new pustular forma-tion was7～8days.The most common side-effects were xerostomia,cheilosis,xerosis and itch.These results suggested that the efficacy of etretinate and acitretin to treat pustular psoriasis in children was similar,and there was no phenomenon of rebound during withdrawal.Therefore both of them could be first chosen for the treatment of pustular psoriasis under the monitoring of the laboratory tests.