Surgical management of perineal and metastatic cutaneous Crohn's disease

Skin lesions are the commonest extraintestinal manifestation of Crohn's disease. Lesions that develop at sites remote from the gastrointestinal tract and have granulomas on histological examination are termed metastatic cutaneous Crohn's disease. Management is difficult as medical treatment is often ineffective. This report describes the use of surgical debridement of areas of perineal metastatic cutaneous Crohn's disease in five patients, all of whom had failed to improve after a variety of medical treatments. One patient had a poor result with continuing mild perineal discharge and four had a good outcome with complete resolution of symptoms and satisfactory cosmetic results.