Blisters can appear in the skin as a result of a number of causes. These include:
- Congenital in which there are faults in the way the layers of skin adhere together;
- Physical in which the skin splits because of some kind of injury, e.g. sheering forces;
- Infections which cause disruption in the layers of the skin (usually the epidermis) which lead to blistering, e.g. impetigo;
- Inflammation in its acute phase can lead to secondary blistering, e.g. eczema;
- Immunobullous disease in which immunologically mediated damage leads to splitting of the layers of skin either between the dermis and the epidermis or between the layers of the epidermis, e.g. bullous pemphigoid (Graham-Brown and Bourke, 1998).
In this section, the focus will be on the more common congenital diseases and the immunobullous diseases.
