key: cord-0818849-1cq8vj0r
authors: Ciccarese, Giulia; Drago, Francesco; Marinaro, Eugenio; Parodi, Aurora
title: Pityriasis rosea during COVID‐19: Pathogenesis, diagnosis, and treatment
date: 2022-03-06
journal: J Med Virol
DOI: 10.1002/jmv.27672
sha: f1dd02ea0e98545cea7ef195544c9191afe361c7
doc_id: 818849
cord_uid: 1cq8vj0r

Dear Editor, the article by Martora F. et al. on a COVID-19 related atypical form of pityriasis rosea (PR)1 that was recently published in your journal prompted us to make some observations. We agree with the authors that SARS-CoV-2 infection may be a trigger of PR but, remarkably not directly. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that, SARS-CoV-2 infection may reactivate several latent viral infections such as human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) and HHV-7, and, therefore indirectly, induce the skin manifestations of PR.2-4 This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

of viral systemic active infection. [5] [6] [7] Finally, several inflammatory mediators such as interleukin-17, interferon (IFN)-γ, vascular endothelial growth factor, and the IFN-γ-induced protein 10 resulted to be increased in sera of PR patients compared with controls, supporting the active immunological response against a virus. 8 findings quite typical of PR. 9 Finally, the authors declared that patient's serology and PCR for HHV-6/-7 were negative without specifying in which tissue PCR was performed. 1 The fact that serology and PCR (we suppose that PCR was performed on the serum) were negative for HHV-6/-7 in the patient described by Martora 

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