In reply
We wish to thank Smith and Skelton for their comments. In fact, serologic studies and polymerase chain reaction studies of peripheral blood are ongoing, as are in situ polymerase chain reaction investigations with tissue from patients with pemphigus vulgaris and pemphigus foliaceus. Furthermore, we agree that the relationship of paraneoplastic pemphigus with certain malignancies associated with human oncogenic viruses proves the need for serologic and virological studies with specimens from patients with paraneoplastic pemphigus. These investigations are being conducted in our laboratory, and we hope to present the data in the near future.