Aspartame-induced lobular panniculitis

Abstract

Textbooks,1,2 papers,3 and, more recently, this JOURNAL4 have stated that trichomycosis rarely occurs on pubic, scrotal, and perineal hair. This was not our impression from practice in the United Arab Emirates, so we conducted a survey of patients attending the Dermatology Clinics at Tawam University Hospital, AI Ain, Abu Dhabi, from Oct. 15 until Dec. 15, 1989. For practical reasons we choseto study only men whose consultation was primarily for a disorder of the genitalia. In this country most men shave their axillary and pubic hair. Twenty-three patients were thoroughly examined. Only one patient presented with a complaint-a bad odor-that might reasonably have been ascribed to trichomycosis. Nine patients (39%) were found to have trichomycosis of the genital hair, most frequently of the scrotum and perineum. The beadlike or ensheathing lesions around and along the hair shafts were of the white variety (six patients) or the yellow variety (three patients) (Fig. 1). The affected hair was cut, fixed in formalin, processed and embedded in paraffin in a manner likely to yield the greatest numbers and lengths of longitudinal sections. Staining was done with hematoxylin and eosin and with toluidine blue. All clinically affected hair showed the same histologic appearance (Fig. 2) consistent with Corynebacterium infection. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology