Drug-induced lupus erythematosus tumidus during treatment with adalimumab

Patients treated with TNF-alpha inhibitors frequently have serum autoantibodies, but only a few develop clinically apparent lupus erythematosus. The TNF-alpha inhibitor adalimumab is a fully humanized antibody and seems to induce autoantibodies less frequently than other drugs of this group. We report on a patient with rheumatoid arthritis, who developed anti-histone antibodies and lupus tumidus after eight months on adalimumab therapy.