A Clinico-histopathologic Study of Non-infectious Papulosquamous Lesions of Skin at Tertiary Care Hospital

Abstract

Introduction: The papulosquamous skin disorders are a heterogenous group of disorders, shows overlap in morphology and distribution of lesions that leads to difficulty in diagnosis. Distinct histopathological features and clinical correlation gives a conclusive diagnosis. Histopathology is the gold standard for most dermatological diagnosis and specific histopathological diagnosis is important to distinguish these lesions as the treatment and prognosis varies significantly. Aim: To study the histomorphological features of various non-infectious papulosquamous lesions of skin with clinical correlation.Materials and Methods: This study included 100 skin punch biopsies of cases clinically diagnosed as non infectious, erythematous papulosquamous skin disorders. Study was done for a period of one year from November 2018 to October 2019. Diagnosis was confirmed by histopathological examination using hematoxylin and eosin stain. Cases were tabulated according to the distribution of age, gender, clinical and histopathological diagnosis. Results: Majority of the patients were in the 21-30 years age group (25%) with slight male preponderance (51%). Histopathologically, lichen planus was the most common (29%) followed by psoriatic lesions (25%). Correlation of clinical with histopathological diagnosis was positive in 72% cases and negative in 28% cases. Conclusion: Some of the histopathological features are specific and characteristic for each entity while few disorders may show some overlap. In these circumstances an attempt at clinico histopathological correlation serves as an ideal approach. Thus, the Dermatopathology is important for more definite differentiation as separation of each of the papulosquamous lesions important because each entity had a different prognosis and treatment.