To determine the course and prognosis and also to reexamine the clinical and histologic features of lipodystrophia centrifugalis abdominalis infantilis, originally described by Imamura et al in 1971, a questionnaire was sent to 94 dermatology and pediatric departments in Japan. Data on 86 cases collected from 44 departments confirmed the unique and distinct features of this disease: onset by age 3, development of the lesion in the groin, axillae, or their surroundings, presence of slightly inflammatory areas around the depressed one, and histologically, loss of subcutaneous fat in the depressed area with panniculitis in the surrounding area. The depressed lesions were found to enlarge centrifugally for several years and to involve a large part of the abdominal and/or chest wall. However, the enlargement was found to stop spontaneously by age 13, and the depressed area tended to undergo recovery thereafter.
