Dermatitis herpetiformis and celiac disease increase the risk of bullous pemphigoid

Bullous pemphigoid (BP) and dermatitis herpetiformis (DH) are autoimmune bullous skin diseases. DH has been described to evolve into BP and the two diseases can have overlapping clinical appearances and diagnostic findings, but the association between DH and BP has not previously been studied in a large population. To evaluate DH and celiac disease (CD) as risk factors for BP we conducted a retrospective case-control study of patients with BP and matched controls with basal cell carcinoma diagnosed in Finland between 1997 and 2013.