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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Indian J Med Paediatr Oncol 2017; 38(04): 548-551
DOI: 10.4103/ijmpo.ijmpo_147_16
Case Report

Flagellate Rash: An Unusual Complication of Bleomycin Therapy – A Case Report with Brief Review of Literature

Chaturbhuj Agrawal
Department of Medical Oncology, Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre, Rohini, New Delhi, India
,
Vineet Talwar
Department of Medical Oncology, Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre, Rohini, New Delhi, India
,
Rajeev Saini
Department of Medical Oncology, Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre, Rohini, New Delhi, India
,
Pradeep Babu
Department of Medical Oncology, Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre, Rohini, New Delhi, India
› Author Affiliations Financial support and sponsorship Nil.
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Abstract

Chemotherapy-induced skin rashes arecommon toxicities encountered which require careful assessment and evaluation as rashes could be a manifestation of primary malignancy itself and a variety of drugs used incombination furthercomplicate the clinical scenario. Bleomycin is an anticancer antibiotic derived from Streptomyces verticillus and has beencommonly used in the treatment of Hodgkin's disease, germ cell tumors and for pleurodesis. There are various dermatological adverse effects of bleomycin which have been previously reported in literature including skin peeling, hyperkeratosis, nail bed changes, Raynaud's phenomenon, and palmoplantar desquamation. Bleomycin-induced skin rashes are seen infrequently now a day due to its declining use in clinical practice. We report here a 29-year-old male with Stage III germ cell tumor who developed widespread flagellate rash after receiving 3 cycles of bleomycin-based chemotherapy which responded to treatment with local steroids and omission of bleomycin from further chemotherapy cycles.

Keywords

Bleomycin - flagellate rash - germ cell tumor


Publication History

Article published online:
04 July 2021

© 2017. Indian Society of Medical and Paediatric Oncology. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used forcommercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.)

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