What is called "Degos' disease," known also as "malignant atrophic papulosis," is a distinctive pattern of disease, clinically and histopathologically, it being a "final common pathway" for several pathologic processes, chief among them lupus erythematosus. In this sense, Degos' disease is analogous to many other patterns of inflammatory disease, such as erythema multiforme, erythema nodosum, leukocytoclastic vasculitis, Sweets' syndrome, Rosai-Dorfman disease, pyoderma gangrenosum, sarcoidosis, granuloma annulare, and psoriasis. Each of the aforementioned patterns of disease has characteristic attributes morphologically, and each has different causes.