Pseudolymphoma caused by cholesterol embolism
Castell, P.; Friedel, J.; Siré, J.; Lambert, D.
Annales de Dermatologie et de Venereologie 120(10): 697-699
1993
ISSN/ISBN: 0151-9638 PMID: 8161101 Document Number: 410600
We report the case of a 60-year old man who, during four years following surgical repair of an inguinal hernia (with transient antithrombotic therapy), suffered from an atypical inflammatory nodule on the dorsum of the left foot with an erythematous plaque on the first intermetatarsal space, together with an inflammatory plaque on the right fifth finger and hairless plaques on both wrists. An ultimate biopsy of the nodule made it possible to discover, unexpectedly, two shadows of cholesterol crystals in a vascular lumen and inside the cytoplasm of a giant multinucleate cell found on a single histological slice and at the deepest part of the fragment. The inflammatory lesions disappeared under a 250 mg/day aspirin treatment. We emphasize the uncommon clinical and pathological pseudo-lymphomatous features of this case and regard our description as original in view of the chronicity of the embolising process.