Galli-Galli disease: an unrecognized entity or an acantholytic variant of Dowling-Degos disease?

Abstract

Galli-Galli disease is an inherited disease characterized by slowly progressive and disfiguring reticulate hyperpigmentation of the flexures, clinically and histopathologically diagnostic for Dowling-Degos disease, but also associated with suprabasal, nondyskeratotic acantholysis. A few patients exhibiting these features have been described, mainly in the non-English-language literature, which suggests that Galli-Galli disease is not an entity of its own, as originally thought, but is an acantholytic variant of Dowling-Degos disease. We report a typical case of Galli-Galli disease, which supports this concept.