[Non infectious skin conditions associated with diabetes mellitus: a prospective study of 308 cases]

Non-infectious dermatoses during diabetes appear frequent if one refers to some of the studies in the literature that have attempted to assess its prevalence.

From November 2000 to November 2001, 308 randomly selected, hospitalized, diabetic patients were examined. The data were collected prospectively and systematically in a pre-established questionnaire. Statistical analysis included a descriptive and univariate analysis.

206/308 diabetics (67 p. 100) exhibited at least one non-infectious dermatitis, the most frequent of which was cutaneous xerosis (39 p. 100), diabetic dermopathy (24 p. 100), facial erythrosis (24 p. 100), purpural and pigmented capillaritis of the legs (20 p. 100), xanthochromia (12 p. 100) pseudo-scleroderma (8 p. 100) and acanthosis nigricans (7 p. 100). The non-infectious dermatoses were globally more frequent in type II diabetic patients exhibiting at least one microvascular complication.

This study is the first French prospective work on the subject. We found a prevalence of non-infectious dermatoses during diabetes close to that of the major studies in the literature. Some of these dermatoses are markers of macrovascular (acanthosis nigricans, purpural and pigmented capillarity) or microvascular (xerosis, acanthosis nigricans, purpural and pigmented capillarity, Dupuytren's disease) complications for type II diabetes or are markers of auto-immunity (alopecia areata, vitiligo) for type I.