Toxic epidermal necrolysis treated with cyclosporin

Toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) is a severe life-threatening disorder which has many features in common with graft-versus-host disease. However, immunosuppression with steroids gives disappointing results and is possibly detrimental. We treated two patients who had TEN with a combination of cyclosporin and steroids which resulted in an apparent halt to the evolution of the disease, and a further relapse was aborted using cyclosporin in one of these patients. We feel that the use of this drug in the early treatment of TEN where it is used as a specific therapy aimed at the primary immunopathological events and is used in conjunction with the supportive care patients require, needs to be further evaluated.