Barber's Interdigital Pilonidal Sinus

Roustabouts' and barbers' breasts

“…Barbers interdigital pilonidal sinuses have been reported sporadically (Allington, 1942;Patey & Scarff, 1946;King, 1949;Joseph & Gifford, 1954), and also similar lesions in dog groomers (Price & Popkin, 1976), milkers (Meneghini & Gianotti,t964) and sheep shearers (Matheson, 1951). I can find no trace of reports of hair causing similar lesions on the breasts.…”

Barber's Syndrome

“…Penetration of the epidermis with short and hard hairs leads to sinus formation, hair accumulation triggers infection, leaking out through the sinus, and hair present in the drainage. Over time, as the formation is covered with the foreign body granulation texture, the cyst with exogenous hairs occurs [1,2,[9][10][11][12].…”

“…The penetration of short and hard hairs into the epidermis and the accumulation in the interdigital space triggers infection and leads to the classic plenoidal sinus pattern. However, unlike the classical plenoidal sinus, this pattern is formed in the interdigital space free of hair follicles and with exogenous, non-patient hair [1,2,[9][10][11][12].…”

“…Treatment is secondary recovery after surgical excision, or primary suturation, or repair with rotation flap. Antibiotic therapy alone is not enough [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12].…”

Hair Dresser's Syndrome: A Case Report of an Interdigital Pilonidal Sinus and Review of the Literature

“…Matheson 13 indicated a case of interdigital pinodial sinus caused by wool. Downing 14 in 1952, Currie et al 15 in 1953, and Joseph and Gifford 16 in 1954 told of other cases in hair dressers. Powell 17 reported a case and ineffectiveness of the conservative measures in symptomatic sinuses in 1955.…”