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Painful, red bumps, nodules, ulcerated pimples – may appear weeks or months before the diagnosis of inflammation or cancer of the gastrointestinal tract. It is estimated that the disease manifests itself in the same way even in the third patient.
– The skin says a lot about the condition of our body. Many internal diseases can be identified by the color and condition of the skin. Symptoms may appear as a bruise, yellowing or pale skin. In many cases, various skin symptoms precede, even by many months, the symptoms of gastrointestinal diseases – emphasizes Dr. Magdalena Kędzierska from the Department of Dermatology of the Central Clinical Hospital of the Ministry of Interior and Administration in Warsaw.
Erythema and diseases of the digestive system
Various types of eruptions on the skin, including lumps, lumps, vesicles, pustules or ulcers, may accompany intestinal diseases. Some of these changes are very characteristic of certain diseases, so they should be diagnosed.
– The diseases of the digestive system, which are most often accompanied by skin lesions, include, first of all, nonspecific inflammatory bowel diseases, i.e. Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis – says Dr. Irena Walecka, head of the Dermatology Clinic of the Central Clinical Hospital of the Ministry of Interior and Administration in Warsaw .
This group of diseases is accompanied by many skin lesions that occur with varying severity and in different periods of the underlying disease.
The most common of these symptoms are:
- Erythema nodosum: painful lumps and lumps that appear suddenly, usually on the front surface of the lower leg, are more common in women. Such changes may appear in about 15 percent. patients with inflammatory bowel disease. Initially, these changes are vivid red, then they turn brown, and as they disappear, they turn yellow-green. They never ulcerate and always heal without scarring. Symptoms usually last for three to six weeks.
- Pyoderma gangrenosum: Inflammatory red bumps or pustules that spread very quickly. If left untreated, they can be fatal, but if treated, they last for months (sometimes years) and heal, leaving scars. It is a rare disease of unknown etiology. It affects about 5 percent. patients with ulcerative colitis and about 2 percent. patients with Crohn’s disease. These changes are most often located on the lower limbs.
Malabsorption syndromes
Some skin lesions may be associated with impaired food absorption, and hence – poor absorption of vitamins and minerals. An example is zinc deficiency, which may be caused by insufficient amounts of this element in the diet or impaired absorption – in the course of diseases such as inflammatory bowel diseases, pancreatitis or chronic kidney disease. There is also a hereditary impairment of the intestinal absorption of zinc.
When the body begins to lack this element, (regardless of the cause), erythema-exfoliating lesions may appear on the body, covered with erosions and scabs (the most common scab is in the central part, and there are vesicles and pustules around the perimeter), and on the inner parts of the limbs.
The changes may also affect the hair, which then resembles the color of a zebra, with light and dark strands, which is the result of changes in the concentration of zinc in the body.
Infections of the digestive tract and the skin
Also, infections of the gastrointestinal tract can show symptoms in the form of skin lesions.
– In the course of parasitic infections, such as: lamblia, pinworm, roundworm, armed and unarmed tapeworm, many changes in the nature of urticaria blisters may appear. Bacterial infections such as Salmonella and Shigella can be accompanied by, among others: erythema nodosum – says Dr. Irena Walecka.
But this is not the end. Infection with the bacterium Helicobacter pylori is often associated with rosacea – a disease that usually begins around the age of 30 and peaks around the age of 40-50.
The disease is more common in women, but the disease is more severe in men. In its initial stage, skin lesions are erythematous, with transient reddening of the facial skin. At a later stage, papular and pustular eruptions appear. The lesions are located in the middle of the face (nose, cheeks, forehead). It is worth adding that similar symptoms are also found in other diseases, such as lupus.
– In some cases, rosacea may coexist with Helicobacter pylori infection. The relationship between rosacea and this infection is still unclear and there is no certain evidence of it. Nevertheless, in some patients, acne disappears after Helicobacter pylori infection is cured, says Dr. Irena Walecka.
Skin lesions – tumor marker
For every doctor, and especially for a dermatologist, an alarm signal that a patient may have cancer are skin lesions that cannot be treated with standard treatment.
Such skin lesions accompanying neoplastic processes are called paraneoplastic syndromes.
To recognize them, the following criteria must be met:
- unusual skin symptoms resistant to standard treatment,
- skin lesions disappear with proper cancer treatment and reappear when the cancer process resumes.
One of the typical dermatological diseases that mark tumors is keratosis keratosis. This disease accompanies, among other things, gastric adenocarcinoma. It manifests itself as papillary, symmetrical overgrowth of the skin accompanied by itching. The lesions are located in the folds and folds of the skin, sometimes on the eyelids and lips. Sometimes brown spots appear on the mucous membranes of the mouth.
Dark hand keratosis may coexist with gastric cancer and bronchial cancer. Also, the sudden appearance of multiple seborrhoeic warts, accompanied by itching, may be associated with the tumor (e.g. adenocarcinoma of the gastrointestinal tract).
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