Panniculitis in Cutaneous Leishmaniasis: a Study in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Introduction: Panniculitis is the inflammation of subcutaneous adipose tissue which is caused by many infectious and inflammatory conditions. It is high time to document panniculitis in the skin lesions with cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) in Sri Lanka. Objectives: This study was performed to assess demographic data and to describe panniculitis in patients with CL. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was done from 2013 to March 2018 at Teaching Hospital Kandy, Sri Lanka. The skin biopsies clinically suspected as CL evaluated histologically for diagnostic or indicative evidence of CL, and patients responded completely to the specific anti-leishmaniasis treatment were taken as the study population. Skin biopsies of 123 patients were assessed in view of dermal granulomata, Leishman-Donovan bodies and panniculitis. Results: The majority of patients were in the age group of 36 to 50 years (N= 36:29.3%: mean=41.64 years: SD18.15 years) and there was a slight female predominance in the study (N=65:52.8%). A majority of skin biopsies revealed Granulomata (N=95: 77.2%). Leishmania Donovan bodies were identified among 43.1% of the lesions (N=53). Though there were 123 patients, only 66 (53.6%) skin biopsies were deeper enough to reveal subcutaneous tissue. A significant amount of skin lesions showed subcutaneous tissue inflammation (N=59:89.39%), predominantly non-granulomatous in morphology (N=44:74.6%). Conclusion: Subcutaneous tissue inflammatory infiltrates in the non-granulomatous morphology is an important feature of the skin biopsies of CL especially in the granulomatous variant of the CL, which can be achieved by a deeper elliptical biopsy.