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Oral and Palmoplantar Findings in Patients With COVID-19
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In this report from a field hospital in Spain during the peak of the pandemic, nearly half (45.7%) of the 666 COVID-19 patients had mucocutaneous findings, higher than reported in previous publications. About one-fourth had oral findings, most commonly transient lingual papillitis (11.5%), aphthous stomatitis (6.9%), glossitis with lateral indentations (6.6%), and glossitis with patchy loss of papillae (3·9%). Almost 40% experienced palmoplantar involvement, most commonly diffuse desquamation favoring weight-bearing sites (25.3%) or brown acral macules (15.1%).
- This observational analysis reports several dermatologic findings not previously reported to be associated with COVID-19, including glossitis, papillitis, and diffuse asymptomatic palmoplantar desquamation. This study also demonstrates a high prevalence of oral and palmoplantar findings in COVID-19 patients, and interestingly, skin rash was relatively uncommon in comparison (11.6%).
abstract
This abstract is available on the publisher's site.
Access this abstract nowCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) has been associated with several cutaneous manifestations.1-3 A temporary field hospital was implemented during the pandemic peak in Madrid, Spain, to attend patients with COVID‐19 who had mild‐to‐moderate pneumonia. A team of dermatologists working as medical volunteers performed a cross‐sectional study between 10 and 25 April 2020 to evaluate cutaneous findings of such patients.
Additional Info
Disclosure statements are available on the authors' profiles:
Prevalence of Mucocutaneous Manifestations in 666 Patients With COVID-19 in a Field Hospital in Spain: Oral and Palmoplantar Findings
Br J Dermatol 2020 Sep 24;[EPub Ahead of Print], A Nuno-Gonzalez, P Martin-Carrillo, K Magaletsky, MD Martin Rios, C Herranz Mañas, J Artigas Almazan, G García Casasola, E Perez Castro, A Gallego Arenas, A Mayor Ibarguren, M Feito Rodríguez, B Lozano Masdemont, M Beato, E Ruiz Bravo, P Oliver, MD Montero Vega, P Herranz PintoFrom MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
Dermatology
Despite news that a COVID-19 vaccine is soon to be rolled out in the United States and soon after around the world, dermatologists and primary care physicians should keep their guard up for signs and symptoms of this disease. Images from this article are included to emphasize the wide range of dermatologist findings.
Clinical Dentistry
This letter to the editor reports the prevalence of a variety of dermatologic and oral lesions in 666 confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection. The authors described mucocutaneous lesions in 45.7% of all infected patients. The most common, significant dermatologic manifestations of interest were diffuse desquamation and/or reddish-to-brown macules on the palmoplantar skin, which occurred in 11.6% and 6.9% of all patients, respectively. With respect to the oral cavity, the authors reported finding lesions in 78 of 666 patients (11.7%). These various findings included transient lingual papillitis, glossitis with lateral indentations, aphthous stomatitis, glossitis with patchy depapillation, mucositis, and a burning sensation. However, because these types of oral lesions are very common in the general population, the clinical significance of finding occasional examples in a COVID-19 cohort might be questioned. (No matching control group was reported for comparison purposes.) The authors included two oral photographs. The first shows a tongue with mild lateral crenations—a very common oral finding incidental to pressure against the adjacent tooth embrasures. The second photograph shows a tongue with classic erythema migrans (“glossitis with patchy depapillation”)—another very common oral lesion. Further studies would be needed to determine if these oral findings occur with greater frequency in patients with COVID-19 infections, or if they simply represent the baseline prevalence of such lesions in the general population. Many reports have described dysgeusia (altered taste sensation) as a common symptom in COVID-19 patients. In this regard, the authors of this letter state that dysgeusia was a common finding in their patients, although the specific number/percentage of patients affected was not provided.