Plantar warts recently turned black. Clinical and histopathologic findings

Abstract

The inflammatory component associated with blackening and subsequent regression of plantar warts has been little appreciated in the literature. Two patients with plantar warts in whom one of the warts showed prominent, clinically evident inflammation were observed. Blackening and subsequent regression of all plantar warts then occurred. In one patient, microscopic examination of biopsy specimens of two lesions that were taken within 24 and 72 hours, respectively, after they had turned black demonstrated the following histologic findings: blood clots and hemorrhage in the stratum corneum, degeneration and necrosis of epidermal cells, eosinophilic cytoplasmic masses within degenerating epidermal cells, thrombosis of superficial and deeper dermal blood vessels, a mononuclear cell infiltrate in and around dermal blood vessels, and a mixed polymorphonuclear and lymphocytic infiltration in the areas of hemorrhage and degenerating epidermis. This constellation of histopathologic changes suggests that involution was in progress long before blackening of the warts occurred.

Clinical Manifestations of the Human Papillomavirus

“…Egawa was the first to describe these subtypes in 1988 [18]. Although common warts and molluscum contagiosum can transform to a black color [19,20] in their involutionary phases, pigmented warts are pigmented from the initial phases. They are fundamentally located on the hands and feet.…”

Verruca vulgaris unter dem klinischen Bild eines akralen malignen Melanoms

“…Ob es einen generellen ethnischen Unterschied in der Inzidenz pigmentierter Verrucae vulgares gibt, ist jedoch noch nicht abschließend geklärt [2]. Andererseits können Verrucae vulgares auch eine sekundäre Verfär-bung zeigen: Eine Schwarzfärbung im Involutionsstadium wurde beschrieben, ist jedoch in erster Linie durch Einblutung bedingt [1].…”