Erosive lichen planus of the soles: Effective response to prednisone

BACKGROUND: Erosive lichen planus (LP) of the soles is a rare variant of LP, characterized by chronic, painful, and disabling plantar ulcerations. Herein, we report a case with complete healing following treatment with systemic steroids. CASE REPORT: A 38-year-old woman was referred with painful and disabling erosive bilateral plantar LP, which she had experienced for 6 weeks. A 1 mg/kg/day, oral prednisone therapy led to rapid improvement and complete healing within 3 weeks, with a sustained result under a low dose maintenance therapy. DISCUSSION: Ulcerative plantar LP is significantly known to be unresponsive to several topical and systemic therapies. Surgical excision and grafting is the treatment of choice. Systemic steroids are reported to have inefficient or partial results; both on cutaneous healing and on maintenance of the result. Our patient achieved complete cicatrisation with a sustained result of 3 months under a low dose of prednisone (5 mg/day).