Case Rep Dermatol. 2013 May 03;5(2):133-7. doi: 10.1159/000350929. Print 2013 May.
Case reports in dermatology
Motoyuki Mihara
PMID: 23741212 PMCID: PMC3670622 DOI: 10.1159/000350929
A 40-year-old woman presented with an itchy erythematosquamous change of a café-au-lait spot in her face. The onset of this change occurred just after her relocation. The café-au-lait spot had been irradiated by laser approximately 20 years ago. Clinically, there was a coin-sized erythema with a slight scale on the pigmented lesion in the left lateral orbital region. Histopathologically, the lesion demonstrated both spongiotic dermatitis and interface dermatitis together with lymphohistiocytic cell infiltration, in addition to moderate acanthosis and elongation of rete ridges with slight basal hyperpigmentation. From these clinical and histopathological findings, the lesion was diagnosed as eczematous dermatitis occurring on the café-au-lait spot after laser radiation. Another interesting histopathological finding was that some parts of a lobule of the sebaceous gland were occupied exclusively by degenerative atrophic sebocytes. From the viewpoint of pathogenesis, the eczematous dermatitis of this patient could have been an accompanying feature of a neurogenic inflammation occurring on the café-au-lait spot after laser radiation, and the atrophic change of a part of the sebaceous lobule might have been induced by a morphogenetic alteration of certain germinative cells of the sebaceous lobule due to laser radiation.
Keywords: Atrophic sebocytes; Café-au-lait spot; Eczematous dermatitis; Histopathology; Laser; Neurogenic inflammation; Recall dermatitis; Sebaceous gland
