CUTANEOUS FORM OF POLYARTERITIS NODOSA

Abstract

KUSSMAUL and Maier¹ in 1866 first described the disease which is now called polyarteritis or periarteritis nodosa. The term of periarteritis is an obvious misnomer, for the essential pathologic picture is that of a panarteritis. The disease is a form of inflammatory, necrotizing and obliterative panarteritis of small arteries, arterioles and, occasionally, veins. General, systemic symptoms commonly accompany the disease, but the type and occurrence of regional symptoms depend on the organs involved. The primary macroscopic lesion is a nodule from 2 to 8 mm. in diameter which is of considerable diagnostic significance when the skin is affected. Alkiewicz² collected from the literature 36 cases with skin involvement reported to 1933. In 1939 Ketron and Bernstein³ added 23 more to those published by Alkiewicz and found the incidence of cutaneous involvement to be approximately 25 per cent. In 1937 Carol and Prakken⁴ reported a benign cutaneous form of polyarteritis nodosa in a 19 year old