Clinicopathological assessment of patients with erythroderma

Abstract

Background Erythroderma is a rare disease, characterized by generalized erythema and scaling of the skin. Aims The aim of this study was to clinicopathologically assess patients with erythroderma who attended the Department of Dermatology at the Faculty of Medicine, Sohag University, Upper Egypt. Patients and methods This was a cross-sectional clinical research study that was carried out on 33 patients with erythroderma. All of the patients were subjected to complete medical history taking and general and dermatological examinations. All of the patients were subjected to laboratory, radiological, and cutaneous histopathological evaluations. Results The mean age of the patients was 46.86 years. According to the clinical and histopathological findings, the erythrodermic patients were categorized into 26 (78.78%) patients who had preexisting dermatoses, four (12.12%) patients had malignancies, and three (9.1%) patients had drug reactions. Moreover, there was moderate and perfect interrater reliability agreement between clinical and histopathology evaluations in the diagnosis of different etiological causes of erythroderma. Limitations A small sample size and small number of included patients were the limitations of the study. Conclusion This study concluded that the main causes of erythroderma were preexisting dermatoses followed by malignancies and drug reactions. Psoriasis was the main preexisting dermatoses in erythrodermic patients. Clinical and histopathology evaluations are essential for accurate diagnosis of different etiological causes of the erythroderma.