What causes lichen striatus?

Lichen striatus is a typical chronic skin inflammation. In fact, the cause is not very clear at present, but it is closely related to viral infection. Moreover, this disease is particularly prone to children aged 5 to 10 years old. As parents, we must pay attention to prevention.

1. Lichen striatus is a chronic inflammatory skin disease with linearly arranged polygonal papules as typical skin lesions. The cause is unknown, but may be related to viral infection.

2. Early lesions are flat, polygonal or round lichenoid papules ranging from needle-tip to chestnut-sized. The surface is slightly shiny and covered with a small amount of grayish white scales. Most of them are clustered and gradually develop into a swallowtail-like shape, increasing in number and merging with each other to form continuous or intermittent stripes or bands of varying lengths and widths. The line width is 0.2 to 0.3 cm, and sometimes can extend to the same length as the entire limb. The lesions are grayish white, with some parts being light red.

3. This disease mainly occurs in children aged 5 to 10 years old, rarely in infants and adults, more commonly in women than in men, and tends to occur on one side of a limb, more often in the upper limbs than in the lower limbs. The skin lesions are skin color or grayish white, and some are light red lichen-like papules, arranged in continuous or discontinuous lines along the limbs. Most of the cases are unilateral, occasionally bilateral. No symptoms or occasional itching. Some cases are complicated with pityriasis alba, mild atopic dermatitis, nail dystrophy, etc. Whether there is a certain connection needs further clinical observation and research.

4. The disease can be diagnosed based on the characteristics of dermatitis, the location of the rash, the presence or absence of subjective symptoms, and characteristic skin pathological changes. However, it needs to be differentiated from the following diseases: ① Linear lichen planus: It is more common in adults. The skin lesions are polygonal purple-red flat papules with visible Wickham lines on the surface, often with an umbilicus in the center, obvious isotype reactions, and intense itching. Histopathologically, band-like infiltration can be seen in the superficial dermis, and colloid bodies are present in the dermal papillae. ② Psoriasis zoster: The basic lesion is red maculopapules with silvery white mica-like scales. A thin film may appear after scraping off the scales, and light scraping of the thin film may cause punctate bleeding. ③ Neurodermatitis: There are typical lichenification of the skin, severe itching and long duration. ④ Unilateral verrucous nevus: It is usually present at birth, with a hard rash that presents as keratinous verrucous protrusions and no tendency to self-heal; the histopathological features are hyperkeratosis, thickening of the prickle cell layer, and papilloma-like changes, which tend to become a psoriasis-like type. Whereas lichen threadformis tends to become a lichenoid type variation.