Abstract

FROES, Giselle Carvalho; BITTENCOURT, Flávia Vasques; RESENDE, Ana Cristina Brandão de  and  BRANDAO, Flávia Vieira. Case for diagnosis. An. Bras. Dermatol. [online]. 2008, vol.83, n.1, pp. 90-92. ISSN 1806-4841.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0365-05962008000100013.

The term cutis tricolor describes the presence of congenital hyper and hypopigmented skin macules and is a manifestation of skin mosaicism, explained by the allelic twin spotting mechanism. This phenomenon consists of a peculiar type of somatic recombination, with loss of heterozygosity, which occurs during mitosis in the forming embryo. We present the case of a male patient, aged 16, with congenital asymptomatic adjacent hyper and hypopigmented macules on the trunk. No other anomalies could be detected.

Keywords : Genetic recombination; Genetic skin diseases; Mosaicism; Pigmentation disorders.