The clinical and histopatholgical study of erythema induratum and erythema nodosum

Choi, Un Sun; Bang, Dongsik; Lee, Kwang Gil; Chun, Soo Il

Abstract

Erythema induratum and erythema nodosum are both inflammatory disorders of the panniculus. However they are often difficult to distinguish because of clinical variations and similarity of histopathologic features. We investigated the clinical and histopathologic features of 30 cases of erythema induratum and 38 cases of erythema nodosum in order to define discrimination of clinical and histopathologic features. The results show that presence of ulceration is clinically important in differentiating erythema induratum from erythema nodosum. Histopathologic findings which suggest erythema induratum include lobular panniculitis or lobuloseptal panniculitis, necrosis and necrotizing vasculitis while erythema nodosum is characterized by predominantly septal panniculitis without necrosis and necrotizing vasculitis.