REPORT OF A CASE
A 41-year-old woman presented to the hospital with a 4-year history of a cyclically recurrent, painful, pruritic, urticarial, and eczematous eruption on her forearms and the upper part of her thighs. Episodic flares occurred every 2 to 3 months and generally lasted 3 to 4 weeks. Although topical steroid therapy partially relieved her symptoms, short courses of prednisone appeared to speed the involution of lesions. On more than one occasion, erythema, edema, and warmth of the left leg developed so rapidly that the diagnosis of infectious cellulitis could not be excluded, and intravenous antibiotics were administered for 5 to 7 days, with temporally associated improvement. Her medical history was significant for a questionable diagnosis of asthma in 1992 and a lung biopsy in 1993 demonstrating plasma cell granulomas. Her pulmonary disorder, along with the new onset of thrombocytosis and anemia of uncertain origin, resolved with corticosteroid