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A Record-Based Retrospective Study of Histopathological Evaluation of Non-Lepromatous Cutaneous Infections in a
Kalaivani Selvi Subramanian1, SreeRekha Jinkala2, Debasis Gochhait2
1From the Department of Pathology, Sri Venkateshwara Medical College, Hospital and Research Centre, Puducherry, India.
Introduction:
Cutaneous infections contribute to an important cause of all dermatological lesions. Most of the superficial cutaneous infections are diagnosed based on clinical findings and with adjunct diagnostic modalities like potassium hydroxide mounts, tzanck smears, Gram stain, and other microbiological investigations and are treated without the necessity of histopathological examinations. Histopathology is indispensable in some instances, especially when the above-mentioned investigations are non-contributory for diagnosis, and in situations where there is a doubt that the organisms isolated in culture represents contamination and in deep cutaneous infections to define tissue and vascular invasion. Hence, this study aimed at studying the spectrum of non-lepromatous cutaneous infections that required histopathological examination for diagnosis.
Materials And Methods:
This is a record-based retrospective study conducted in the Department of Pathology for 4 years. All diagnosed cases of cutaneous infections that required histopathological examinations for diagnosis were included in the study. Leprosy cases were excluded from the study. Details were collected retrospectively from the records and were analysed manually. Results: There were totally 112 cases of cutaneous infections diagnosed on histopathology during the study period, of which 14% were bacterial, 15.2% were viral, 77% were fungal, and 3.6% were parasitic. Actinomycosis was the common bacterial infection, human papillomavirus-related lesions were the common viral infections, pheohyphomycosis was the common fungal infection, and cysticercosis was the common parasitic infection.
Conclusion:
Histopathological examinations play an important role in management of cutaneous infections as they not only aid in primary diagnosis but also give information on host reaction, severity of the infection, and the presence of tissue invasion, which are crucial information for undertaking treatment decisions.
