Skin Diseases

The patient knew that he had psoriasis, but failed to connect onychodystrophy to his underlying skin disease.

Despite the fact that this lesion is NOT in a sun-exposed skin site, the clinical features are typical for a basal cell carcinoma.

A small punch biopsy showed basal cell carcinoma with focal hypermelanosis. The underlying erythema and punctuate superficial dark black pigmentation strongly suggested a dysplastic nevus or even a melanoma.

Epidermoid cysts may be treated with intralesional injections of phosphatidylcholine to avoid potential recurrence, eliminate scarring, and reduce cost.

A biopsy is the only way to determine if this is a primary cutaneous neoplasm or a cutaneous metastasis from a visceral carcinoma.

This woman is allergic to an ingredient in her favorite lipstick.

Leishmaniasis remains an important infection which can be “imported” from endemic foci, such as the Middle East.

Hair loss: How to help your patients now - and what's on the horizon.

Nails: Tips when your patient complains “My nails look crummy!”

Psoriatic arthritis can be treated with the new TNF-alpha inhibitor biologic drugs, etanercept, adalimumab, or infliximab.

Eczema: how to keep patients disease-free after steroids. This video shows eczema and tells how to treat it.

Itchy skin. Is it hives? Scabies? Lichen planus? Or just an insect bite? Itching can also be psychogenic, or due to renal, hepatic, or thyroid disorders. Learn how to diagnose it in this video.

Rosacea may look like acne, but it is a vascular, inflammatory disease. Learn to identify, prevent, and treat this disfiguring condition.

These burning red patches around the mouth, known as perleche, are aggravated by aging. Learn how to treat it.

Acne vulgaris in adults: Unlikely. So what causes these acne-like excoriations? Learn about the many triggers for skin lesions that look like acne, but are not.

A boil, painful and nasty: Is it a cyst? Is it a bug bite? Should you culture? Is it MRSA? How should you treat it? What if it recurs? Listen and learn.

A 32-year-old woman presents with a swollen, painful fourth digit on the right hand. While housecleaning, a traumatic erosion developed on the ipsilateral hyponychium.

A 63-year-old woman presented for medical attention relating to the acute onset of an intensely pruritic, oozing eruption along the hairline, behind the ears and on the upper face. This eruption followed the first use of a new shampoo product

Red face. Roseacea? Lupus? Sunburn? No, it's seborrheic dermatitis. Here's how to tell.

A 56-year-old woman insisted on an “emergency” appointment due to the relentless appearance of pruritic skin “lesions” on the arms and legs. She admitted to manipulating the skin (scratching, picking, gouging) in an attempt to lessen associated itching.

Here: a review of the potential health effects of bed bugs, diagnosis and treatment, and comments about future directions in bed bug control and public health efforts to manage the pest.

Seborrheic keratoses, cherry angiomas, sebaceous hyperplasia: Learn to identify these innocuous lesions common to aging skin.

Joint hypermobility; “cigarette-paper” skin; keloid scars; and pectus and scoliosis: to what common diagnosis do these disparate findings in 3 different patients point? Click here for more details.

Skin lesions in the outer ear-the pinna, the concha, and the external auditory meatus-may be trivial or potentially malignant. Here we consider a flesh-colored swelling with a central white spicule; a tan papillary lesion; a fluctuant swelling; a red berry-like papule; an elevated pink lesion.

Benign skin lesions can arise in the outer ear as easily as in any other body part frequently exposed to the sun. Seborrheic keratosis may mimic malignant melanoma but is innocuous. Actinic keratosis is premalignant and should be excised, biopsied, and the site of excision monitored vigilantly.

These innocuous lesions of the outer ear may arise spontaneously or after trauma or surgery. Both auricular seroma and pyogenic granuloma usually resolve satisfactorily after minor surgery, though they may recur.

Diagnostic challenge: Two case reports of easily treated and innocuous causes of lesions in the outer ear. Chondrodermatitis nodularis helicis is associated with long cellphone use. Verruca vulgaris is caused, like all other warts, by human papillomavirus.

With no history of papulosquamous skin disease (eg, psoriasis), a solitary, well-demarcated, bright red scaly patch should suggest either superficial basal cell or in situ squamous cell carcinoma.

A 53-year-old woman felt the underwire in her bra stab the inframammary skin. She covered the ensuing shallow wound with antibiotic ointment under a bandage. The wound was slow to heal, and was ultimately replaced by a friable, oozing papule.

A 31-year-old woman presents for evaluation of an asymptomatic, firm plaque on the forehead. Lesions of similar size and consistency were present at the nape of the neck and on the chest. The patient was in overall good health. A biopsy performed to rule out cutaneous lymphoma revealed almost pure sheets of plasma cells in the dermis. What are your diagnostic suspicions and what would your next step be? Please click here and add your comments.