Histopathological study of cutaneous non-neoplastic lesions in punch biopsies

Abstract

Skin being the largest organ of the body, is subjected to constant environmental insults through direct and indirect targets. Non-neoplastic lesions of skin comprise a vast array of diseases, which are usually approached by pattern based method in histopathology for microscopic diagnosis. This study was undertaken with an intention to learn such diseases by a simple minimally invasive punch biopsy procedure.A 2 year retro-prospective study of 82 punch biopsies which were documented as non-neoplastic lesions of skin were studied with respect to their demographical and histopathological profile. Simple descriptive statistics was applied in Microsoft Excel software.Out of the 82 cases studied, 46(56%) were males and 36(44%) were females. Maximum number of cases (n=23) were seen in 21-30 years of age. Most prominent site of lesions biopsied were from lower limb (23 cases) with legs being the commonest among them. Cutaneous infections (n=25) was the most common clinical category, with Mycobacterial lesions as the prominent subcategory (n=16). Granulomatous reaction constituted the most common major tissue reaction pattern among other patterns with a total number of 17 cases out of 82. Panniculitis was the most common minor reaction pattern observed.The pattern based approach in routine histopathological analysis proves a valuable descriptive tool for reaching an accurate diagnosis in cutaneous non-neoplastic lesions.