Emergencies in dermatology: Acute skin failure

Rational understanding of etiopathogenesis of the systemic complications arising out of sudden, severe alterations in structure and function of the skin consequent to the syndrome of acute skin failure clearly establishes the necessity of a dedicated ICU in a skin department. Immune suppression due to increased age, organ transplantation, malignancy, prolonged intake of steroids as also the indiscriminate use of drugs have lead to a spurt in the incidence of widespread, recalcitrant dermatoses with significant potential to eventuate into reaction patterns terminating into acute skin failure, viz. universal erythema and scaling of erythroderma and widespread denudations of bullous dermatoses. Prompt intensive management of all such cases in the ICU on the lines of 100% burns is mandatory.