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Chronic Urticaria as a New Autoimmune Disease?

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Abstract

Urticaria is conventionally classified as acute, intermittent and chronic (Greaves 2000a). Acute urticaria which frequently involves an IgE-mediated immunological mechanism, is common, its causes often recognised by the patient, and will not be considered further. Intermittent urticaria — frequent bouts of unexplained urticaria at intervals of weeks or months — will be discussed here on the same basis as ‘ordinary’ chronic urticaria. The latter is conventionally defined as the occurrence of daily or almost daily whealing for at least six weeks. The etiology of chronic urticaria is usually obscure. The different clinical varieties of chronic urticaria will be briefly considered here, and attention will be devoted to a newly emerged entity — autoimmune chronic urticaria, since establishing this diagnosis has conceptual, prognostic and therapeutic implications. Contact urticaria and angioedema without urticaria will not be dealt with in this account.

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Authors
  1. Malcolm W. Greaves
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Dermatology, University of Erlangen, Hartmannstr. 14, 91052, Erlangen, Germany

    Michael Hertl MD (Professor of Dermatology) (Professor of Dermatology)

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© 2001 Springer-Verlag Wien

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Greaves, M.W. (2001). Chronic Urticaria as a New Autoimmune Disease?. In: Hertl, M. (eds) Autoimmune Diseases of the Skin. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-3704-8_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-3704-8_10

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Vienna

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-7091-3706-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-7091-3704-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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