Erythema Multiforme – Board-Style Questions

What this deck covers

Erythema multiforme in 18 board-style clinical cases with worked explanations. Each case gives you a clinical vignette, four options, the correct answer, and an explanation of why each of the other three is wrong, with the guideline or textbook it follows named on the answer.

Board-style teaching questions for paediatricians and trainees preparing for paediatric board, MRCPCH and licensing examinations. Written from published guidelines and standard paediatric textbooks, with the source named on every answer.

The 18 cases, in order

1. Rings that do not move
2. Where to look first
3. Rings on a toddler
4. The lips as well
5. The question everyone asks
6. Will it turn into the other one
7. Ten days after the cold sore
8. Blaming the antibiotic
9. What to send off
10. What to actually do
11. Asking for the antiviral
12. The steroid question
13. He will not drink
14. Seven times this year
15. Always after the skiing trip
16. How long will this take
17. Very small, and very rare
18. Home, with a plan

Diagnoses and management options tested

Across the 18 cases you are asked to choose between options such as: Each lesion is raised, pale and disappears within an hour, Backs of the hands, forearms and knees, with the palms involved, The presence of a fever, which never occurs at all in that condition, An unrelated infection of the mouth alongside the rash, Raised well-defined rings on the limbs with no skin lifting, It converts in about half of all children within the first week or so, Circulating antibody attacking the lining of the blood vessels, The fever alone, which produces this eruption in young children, None as a routine; a biopsy only if it is odd or persistent, A week of oral antibiotics to prevent the lesions from spreading, It is dangerous at this age and must never be prescribed, It should be given to every child who has mucosal involvement at all, Admission for fluids, since he cannot drink with a mouth like that, A short antiviral course at the start of each episode instead.

Clinical pearls from this deck

• A fixed ring with three zones is a typical target.
• Look at the backs of the hands, and at the palms.
• A ring gone by morning is a weal, not a target.
• Mouth involvement makes it the major form, not a new one.
• Raised targets with no lifting skin is the reassuring pair.
• The two are different diseases, not one spectrum.

Work through the deck once for recognition, then again a week later to test yourself — each question gives the answer and explains why every other option fails.

More from this system: all dermatology case decks · pediatric reference values.