Four patients with erythema multiforme-like lesions in association with apparent discoid lupus erythematosus have been described. In each a characteristic immunological pattern was found in the serum consisting of the presence of speckled type of antinuclear factor, the same precipitating antibody to saline extract of human tissues, and rheumatoid factor.
This is considered to be a new syndrome, and the first in the connective tissue diseases to be described in which a distinctive clinical picture is associated with a characteristic pattern of immunological abnormality.