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It (most probably) doesn't.

Written by Paul B. at 19 Jul 2002 23:34:31:

As an answer to: Does BXO....? written by kevin page at 19 Jul 2002 21:56:07:

> I have to ask this question. Can someone get BXO from an another person, say through handshake or sharing soaps etc etc?

Essentially, no.

"BXO" appears to be an auto-immune disease - the body's immune system takes a dislike to the particular piece of skin, and starts to attempt to destroy it (albeit, not particularly enthusiastically), causing degrees of scarring as a result. The process is similar to rejection of transplanted organs (but not as vigorous) and is the main cause of juvenile diabetes (the body destroys its own pancreatic islets - which are necessary to produce insulin) and thyroid disease (the damage to the thyroid causes first, overactivity which results in swelling and too much thyroid hormone, then the thyroid gland "burns out" and becomes shrunken and inactive with too little thyroid hormone produced and requiring this to be taken as a supplement).

None of these diseases has yet been proven to be due to an infectious agent (virus) but they are inherited and run in families.

But this is not to say it definitely isn't infectious. Since BXO is so uncommon and not life-threatening, there appears to have been comparatively little research on it. Some of the articles on treating it (as in the link I previously posted) suggest good results from long-term antibiotics, implying a possible link with organisms such as Chlamydia or spirochaetes, which could be sexually-transmitted, and I would not be at all surprised if it responded to anti-viral agents (which might not have been tried as they are much more expensive) and was thereby related to herpesvirus.

On the other hand, as it is reported to occur in children, who are we hope very unlikely to suffer sexually-transmitted diseases, that makes it pretty unlikely also.


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