Acquired smooth muscle hamartoma.

Smooth muscle hamartoma is an uncommon, usually congenital, cutaneous hyperplasia of the arrectores pilorum muscles. When it is acquired, it may be confused with Becker's nevus. We report a case of this rare tumor in a 19-year-old man. The disease started several years ago as multiple small skin-colored papules that subsequently coalesced to form a large soft plaque on the back of the left shoulder. The diagnosis of acquired smooth muscle hamartoma was confirmed on histopathology. The patient was reassured about the benign nature of the lesion and was not advised any treatment.

Correlation of clinical, histopathological, and microbiological findings in 60 cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis.

BACKGROUND: In an endemic area, cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is largely diagnosed by its clinical appearance. Diagnostic challenge arises when the lesions appear in nonendemic area, when clinical picture is distorted, or any atypical variant is seen even in endemic regious. In developing countries like ours, the laboratory aid is not widely available and dermatologists mostly have to rely on clinical experience. AIM: The study was aimed to see the correlation of clinical, histological, and microbiological findings in clinically diagnosed cases of CL. METHODS: It was an observational and descriptive study and was conducted over a period of 2 years in two dermatology centers in the country. Seventy-seven patients with clinically suspicious lesions of CL were screened and 60 of these were diagnosed as true clinical cases on the basis of criteria for clinical diagnosis. These cases were then subjected to slit skin smear and histopathological examination. Parasitologically positive and suggestive cases were recorded and descriptive statistics were used to evaluate the findings. RESULTS: Out of 60 registered cases, 36 (60%) were smear-positive and 30 (50%) demonstrated Leishman Donovan (LD) bodies in histological sections. Twenty-six of the remaining (parasite-negative) cases showed one of the recognizable histological patterns seen in CL, 3 did not reveal any suggestive histology but responded to antimonial compound, and 1 turned out to be a case of deep mycosis. CONCLUSION: Considering the magnitude of the problem and limited resources of a developing country like ours, clinical diagnosis alone may be reliable enough in endemic areas.

Scar leishmaniasis

A large spectrum of clinical presentations of cutaneous leishmaniasis [CL] have been reported including a scar presentation in many chronic cases. We report here a case where CL developed in a scar of healed lesion of tuberculoid leprosy. Initially, it was suspected as a relapse or reaction of the previous disease, but on histopathology, it proved to be a new disease [CL]. On antileishmaniasis treatment, lesion healed satisfactorily in about a month time

Lupus tumidus: a variant of cutaneous lupus erythematosus

Lupus tumidus is a rare sub-type of chronic cutaneous lupus erythematosus characterized by dermal plaques in which excessive mucin accumulates early in disease process. We report a middle aged women having succulent, edematous and persistent plaque over her face for five years that was not responding to various empirical treatments offered to her. Finally, on clinico-pathological basis, it was diagnosed as a case of tumid lupus erythematosus [TLE] and she responded satisfactorily to the treatment regimen including oral steroids, chloroquine and application of sun screen