The incidence or prevalence of pemphigus, pemphigoid and dermatitis herpetiformis is .not well documented in Korea, as well as in other Oriental countries. Since differences in the prevalence of these autoimmune diseases between Oriental and Occidental people are generally recognized, it seemed interesting to examine the incidence of these diseases in Seoul.
In this study we found that the total number of new cases of the above diseases was 133(0.047o) among the 324,884 dermatologic patients registered at the out-patient clinics of ten hospitals located in the Seoul area during a period of six years.. The average annual incidences of pemphigus, pemphigoid and dermatitis herpetiformis per 100,000 general population were considered to be lower than those of United States and of European countries: pemphigus, 0.2; pemphigoid, 0.1; and DH, 0.1.
It should be mentioned that there were some limitations in figuring out precise statistics regarding the incidences, from the annual reports of those ten hospitals.
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