Histopathological analysis of chronic paronychia

Abstract

BackgroundChronic paronychia is an inflammatory process of the nail folds lasting more than 6 weeks. Clinically, there is hypertrophy and retraction of the folds and absence of the cuticle. Treatment involves clinical measures and, when there is no response or the hypertrophy of the folds is very pronounced, surgical treatment is indicated. Post‐surgical histopathology is little studied in the literature. In this sense, we believe that the histopathological study is important not only for the individualized understanding of the patient's chronic disease, avoiding relapses, but also for the understanding of its pathophysiology and treatment possibilities.ObjectiveTo describe the histopathological changes found in biopsies of the proximal nail fold of patients with chronic paronychia undergoing surgical treatment.Materials and MethodsA histopathological study of 16 nail folds from 6 patients after surgery was performed at 2 study centers.ResultsThe most prevalent epidermal findings were orthokeratosis, hypergranulosis, acanthosis and spongiosis and the dermal findings were fibrosis and mononuclear inflammatory infiltrate.ConclusionThe histopathological study allowed us to conclude that chronic paronychia is primarily an inflammatory process, but it is not possible to conclude whether microorganisms such as Candida and bacterial cocci are part of the etiology or just secondary and opportunistic agents.