[Lichen striatus with nail involvement. Report of 4 cases and review of the 4 cases in the literature (author's transl)].

Four cases of lichen striatus (L.S.) with nail involvement were studied and the four cases published previously reviewed. There are several types of nail dystrophy: fraying, longitudinal ridging, splitting and shredding, onycholysis, and total nail loss. All of them are transient and can be explained by the pathologic changes observed, particulary the transitory disruption of the basal layer. Lichen striatus must be differentiated from systematized eruptions such as lichen planus (the simultaneous occurrence of L.S. and lichen planus is extremely rare and the resemblance of one dermatosis to the other can be so pronounced that a differential diagnosis is difficult) linear localized neurodermatitis, linear psoriasis (almost always associated with more typical lesions of psoriasis elsewhere on the body), linear keratosis follicularis (histologically typical of Darier's disease) and linear epidermal nevus which occasionaly does not appear at birth but later in life and may present nail involvement. In some cases, however, clinical similarity of the inflammatory linear verrucose epidermal nevus to lichen striatus is striking.