Influencer Caroline Santos, wife of singer Frank Aguiar, revealed that she spent ten days in the ICU after being diagnosed with Stevens-Johnson Syndrome.
On CNN Rádio, in Correspondente Médico, the dermatologist and UFMG professor Lucas Campos explained that the disease is a pharmacodermia.
That is, a drug reaction, which is classified as “life threatening”, as it puts the patient at risk of death.
“It manifests itself from this immune reaction to a drug, which can be of several types.”
Among the remedies most associated with the disease are anti-inflammatory and anticonvulsant drugs.
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The condition affects a large extent of the body, and begins 6 days, on average, after medication.
“Symptoms start with fever and malaise, similar to the flu,” he said.
However, they progress to “reddened and painful skin lesions” in the mouth, in addition to the nasal, ocular and genital mucous membranes.
“As you progress, the skin peels off, the entire surface layer, called the epidermis.”
In the most acute cases, lesions affect other organs, which increases mortality.
The doctor pondered, however, that “the disease is very rare and requires the accumulation of risk factors”.
“The organism has to be susceptible to the drug for genetic reasons and the person has to have a metabolism favorable to the lesion, for example”, he said.
For this reason, from the series of factors that involve the development of the syndrome, “it is not possible to predict who will have the disease”, which can manifest itself in healthy people.
The treatment is the suspension of all drugs, in addition to the patient being treated as a victim of major burns.
“They have lost barriers that serve both to protect from the external environment, such as bacteria, and those that prevent the loss of important bodily substances such as water, electrolytes and proteins”, he added.
