- © 2007 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors
I read with interest the Clinical Vistas Brief by Ahmad Ayaz Sabri and Muhammad Ahad Qayyum.1 Papillary bleeding upon removal of psoriatic scales has been called the Auspitz sign, but the phenomenon was described by several authors before Auspitz, namely, Hebra, Turner, Willan and Plenck.2 Bernhard showed this sign to lack sensitivity (only 41 of 234 patients with psoriasis exhibited the sign) and specificity for psoriasis (a similar phenomenon could be observed with many non-psoriatic lesions).3 Although the Auspitz sign stubbornly persists in many textbooks, it most likely should not be used as a modern diagnostic tool.
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