Zosteriform skin involvement of nodal T-cell lymphoma: a review of the published work of cutaneous malignancies mimicking herpes zoster.

A 77-year-old Japanese woman initially presented with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma involving her neck, axillary and inguen lymph nodes. She had edematous erythema and nodules limited to the skin in zosteriform distribution on the left side chest wall along the T4-5 dermatome. In addition, since 1970, we have mainly been collecting English-language articles on malignant skin tumors and skin metastasis described as zosteriform in the title, and we have reviewed a total of 29 cases, including our own. It should be mentioned that 59% of the cases reported had been diagnosed with herpes zoster at the time of the initial examination and that many of them had received drug therapy (e.g. acyclovir). We wish to add the dermatomic eruption mimicking zoster sine herpete to the list of possible presentations of cutaneous malignancies.