About 6 months ago, I got itchy.
No seriously, one side of abdomen broke out in little bumps. I thought it was a reaction to something topical so I tried not to scratch. They didn't go away, and in fact most of them turned brown and are still with me. Suddenly I have hundreds of new moles, or what could pass as moles at first glance. Weird, but not much of a problem for me.
Until it happened again with a different section of my abdomen. And now around my belly button. It's unusual and I finally got curious enough to look it up. A similar series of steps to my understanding of BCC a year ago.
Well, my self-diagnosis has reached this conclusion: Eruptive Syringoma
Syringoma is a benign tumor of eccrine origin, first described by Biesiadecki and Kaposi[1] showing a differentiation toward intraepidermal eccrine ducts. Eruptive syringoma is a somewhat rare clinical variant, where numerous papules arise in successive crops on the anterior surface of the body.[1],[2]
The skin lesions of syringoma consist of yellow to flesh-colored to brown 1-5 mm papules, which are commonly found on the eyelids. Other characteristic sites include the neck, chest, axillae, antecubital fossae, upper extremities, lower part of the abdomen and groins. They occur predominantly in women and may develop at any age, with a peak incidence between the third and fourth decades.[3] Histopathologically, the epithelial component of the proliferation is composed of cells with pale or pinkish cytoplasm arrayed as nests and tubules of relatively uniform size. Depending upon the exact plane of section, the nests of syringoma vary in shape and some nests may resemble a comma or a tadpole.[4]
Eruptive syringoma may clinically resemble lichen planus, flat warts, papuler mucinosis, xanthoma disseminatum and mastocytosis. However, the diagnosis can be easily made with the distinct histopathological findings.
Therapy for syringomas is unsatisfactory. Surgical, oral and topical treatments have shown limited results. Due to the number of lesions, electrocoagulation and cryotherapy are too laborious, yielding poor cosmetic results.[3] Symptomatic eruptive syringomas have shown poor or no response to topical and oral corticosteroids, topical antifungal agents and topical retinoids.[5] Successful treatment with 1% topical atropine resulted in disappearance of the pruritus and in a reduction in the size of the lesions.[6] However, the limitation of this treatment was that the patients had to be carefully evaluated for the side effects of atropine such as blurred vision, headache, palpitation, difficulty in micturition, reduced intestinal peristalsis, etc.
Sarifakioglu E, Gorpelioglu C, Bayrak R. Numerous yellow-brown papules over the trunk. Indian J Dermatol Venereol Leprol [serial online] 2006 [cited 2007 Feb 20];72:247-248. Available from: http://www.ijdvl.com/article.asp?issn=0378-6323;year=2006;volume=72;issue=3;spage=247;epage=248;aulast=Sarifakioglu
In easier to read terms:
Syringoma: A benign (non-cancerous) skin tumor that derives from eccrine cells, specialized cells that are related to sweat glands. The skin lesions usually appear during puberty or adult life, and consist of small bumps one to three millimeters in diameter that form underneath the surface of the skin. The most frequent site is the eyelids and around the eyes, but other areas of the body can also be affected. There may be only one or a few lesions in a localized area, or numerous lesions covering a wide area. Syringomas more frequently affect women and do have an hereditary basis in some, but not all, cases.
From Medterms
While this is not me, this is what my abdomen looked like with the first outbreak, now many of the spots are brown and new crops have sprung up that look like these again.
Thankfully, it's not dangerous, and it's not on my face. Though I do have to wonder what is up with my skin.
No comments:
Post a Comment