Vascular purpura

Vascular purpuras (PV) are a group of elementary skin lesions representing extravasation of red blood cells into the dermis following injury to the vascular wall. Diagnosis is clinical but relies essentially on the exclusion of thrombocytopenia generally below 50000/mm3 and the absence of clinico-biological signs in favor of thrombopathy.The etiologies of vascular purpura are diverse ranging from infectious and drug-induced causes to autoimmune and neoplastic diseases.Indeed PV can reveal multiple conditions of varying severity from isolated cutaneous involvement to life-threatening systemic disease. Consequently a thorough etiological investigation is essential in all cases of PV in order to initiate appropriate treatment and improve the prognosis of the causative disease.