The many faces of cutaneous vasculitis

V asculitis is a general term that refers to segmental, angiocentric inflammation and damage to the blood vessel walls.1 This term does not specify the type of inflammation, nor the size of the vessel involved in the skin, an organ that is well supplied with vasculature and frequently develops different manifestations of vasculitis.2 Often, the skin apparently serves as the initial organ upon which vasculitis is manifest, with involvement of the small to mediumsized vessels that supply nutrients to the skin itself. Although there are times when the only recognizable organ system involved is the skin, cutaneous vasculitis represents a systemic disease process that in many cases is linked to the presence of circulating or locally formed immune complexes (CIC), or may occur through different direct vessel-based immunologic or nonimmunologic mechanisms.