PITYRIASIS ROSEA Treatment

This common condition is sometimes confused with secondary syphilis—but this, by comparison, is a rarity. If the diagnosis is in doubt a full clinical survey and serological tests for syphilis must be carried out. Pityriasis rosea is not obviously infective but in other respects it behaves like an infection with its primary lesion at onset and the ide eruption following this, with its resolution after a course of six to eight weeks and an immunity to further attacks. Emulsify­ing ointment B.P. is all that need be applied in the average episode, and in mild cases nothing is needed. When the disease is severe and the lesions become confluent in the flexures the patient should be advised to stay in bed for a few days, and a corticosteroid ointment should be applied in the areas most severely affected.