HISTO-PATHOLOGICAL SPECTRUM OF SKIN LESIONS IN TERTIARY CARE CENTRE: A THREE YEAR STUDY

Introduction: The largest sensory organ of human body is the skin, which accounts for about 15% of total body weight. It is a complex organ having multiple functions. Primarily it acts as a barrier against various harmful environmental agents (1).Skin diseases affect all age groups and are much common in developing countries. In the field of dermatology, 2000 different skin diseases are well known(2) Objectives: The objectives of the study were as follows: (1) To estimate the prevalence of various non-neoplastic and neoplastic skin lesions in our tertiary care hospital. (2) To study the age and sex-wise distribution of non-neoplastic and neoplastic skin lesions. Methods: The present study comprised a total of 102 skin biopsies of non-neoplastic lesions and neoplastic skin lesions, relevant data like age, sex, and sites of skin lesion were obtained from request forms provided to histopathology section. Specimens received were fixed in 10% formalin. Biopsy bits were submitted as whole and processed in automated tissue processor for routine paraffin embedding. Results: Out of 102 biopsies that were analyzed, most belonged to 21- 60years with slight male predominance with a total of 85 cases being Non-Neoplastic skin lesions, of which Chronic dermatitis 18 (28.5%) was the most common histopathological diagnosis, followed by Hansens disease 21(24.7%) among granulomatous skin disease, and a total of 17 cases of neoplastic skin lesions were identified of which dermatofibroma 2(11.8%) and eccrine spiradenoma 2(11.8%) were the benign variants , and Squamous cell carcinoma 3(17.6%) was the most common malignant variant. Conclusion: Histopathological evaluation of skin biopsies holds gold standard technique for diagnosing various skin lesions and their microscopic evaluation helps in assessing variegated morphological features of different types of skin lesions.