Ultrastructural Findings in Bullous Pemphigoid

Abstract
In four bullous pemphigoid patients electron microscopic and direct immunofluorescence examinations were carried out on sections of the border of a blister, apparently normal skin surrounding the blister, apparently normal skin distant from the blister, and apparently normal skin subjected to the stimulus of a xenon lamp. The bullous pemphigoid blister was formed by cleavage of the basal cells away from the basal lamina which remained intact. The intercellular spaces were widened and the half‐desmosomes reduced in number in the skin surrounding the blister. Xenon lamp irradiation produced a pattern similar to that of the skin surrounding the blister, but without immunoglobulins and complement fixed in vivo.