Generalized Eruptive Histiocytoma

Abstract

Three cases of a new syndrome of generalized eruptive histiocytoma in healthy adults are presented and compared with four others that were recognized from the literature. The lesions are generalized, symmetric, discrete, and flesh-colored to bluish-red papules with no tendency to grouping. The lesions develop in crops and often involute spontaneously. The histologic picture is monomorphous and composed of a mass of reticular and histiocytic cells without fat, mucin, iron, or changes in the connective tissue or vessels. This process seems more closely related to the first histiocytic stage of nevoxantho-endothelioma (xanthogranuloma), histiocytosis X, or xanthoma disseminatum than to the classic solitary histiocytoma (dermatofibroma) lesion and represents benign proliferation of reticular cells (reticulosis).