Erythema gyratum repens (EGR) is characterized by peculiar clinical features of a wood-grain or zebra-like appearance and rapid migration of concentric erythematous bands as a skin manifestation.
Since Gammel reported in 1952 the first case of this condition as a complication in a 60-year-old man with breast carcinoma, a large number of cases with underlying malignancies have been recorded in medical literature throughout the world. Therefore, ERG has been considered an absolute form of the paraneoplastic skin syndrome.However, Barber et al. reported a case of EGR resulting from pulmonary tuberculosis and unassociated with visceral neoplasm in 1978. Many recent studies also suggests that not all the EGR cases are definitely linked to underlying malignancies.
In this article, we describe a case of a 51-year-old man with EGR in whom no internal malignancies could be detected. We also discuss distinctions between EGR and erythema annulare centrifugum (EAC) and more complex clinical and immunopatholigic aspects of EGR, which have come to the attention of medical researchers recently.