Chapter 67. Anetoderma and Other Atrophic Disorders of the Skin

Epidemiology

The lesions in anetoderma usually occur in young adults between the ages of 15 and 30 years and more frequently in women than men. Anetoderma is rare, but the incidence is unknown. Several hundred cases have been reported.1–4

Pathogenesis

The pathogenesis of anetoderma is unknown. The key defect is damage to the dermal elastic fibers. Anetoderma may be considered to be unusual scars, because scars also have decreased elastic tissue. The loss of dermal elastin could be the result of an impaired turnover of elastin caused by either increased destruction or decreased synthesis of elastic fibers.

Clinical Findings

All types of anetoderma are characterized by a circumscribed loss of normal skin elasticity. The characteristic lesions are flaccid circumscribed areas of slack skin with the impression of loss of dermal substance forming depressions, wrinkling, or sac-like protrusions (Fig. 67-1). These atrophic, skin-colored, or blue–white lesions are 5–30 mm in diameter. The number varies from a few to hundreds. The skin surface can be wrinkled, thinned, and often depigmented, and a central depression may be seen. Coalescence of smaller lesions can give rise to larger herniations. The examining finger sinks without resistance into a distinct pit with sharp borders as if into a hernia ring (buttonhole sign). The protrusion reappears as soon as the pressure from the finger is removed.4

The most common sites for these asymptomatic lesions are the chest, back, neck, and upper extremities. They usually develop in young adults, and new lesions often continue to form for many years as the older lesions fail to resolve.

Primary anetoderma occurs when there is no underlying associated skin disease (i.e., it arises on clinically normal skin). It is historically subdivided into two types: (1) those with preceding inflammatory lesions, mainly erythema (the Jadassohn–Pellizzari type), and (2) those without preceding inflammatory lesions (the Schweninger–Buzzi type). This classification is only of historical interest, because the two types of lesions can coexist in the same patient; the prognosis and the histopathology are also the same.4

True secondary anetoderma implies that the characteristic atrophic lesion has appeared in the exact same site as a previous specific pathology; ...