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01-10-2020 | Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia | Review Article

Cutaneous manifestations of B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia

Authors: Elena A. Morozova, Olga Yu. Olisova, Eugene A. Nikitin

Published in: International Journal of Hematology | Issue 4/2020

Abstract

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a malignant lymphoproliferative disease characterized by the accumulation of immature monoclonal B lymphocytes in blood cells, bone marrow, spleen and lymph nodes. This is the most common type of leukemia among the Caucasoid race. When CLL skin lesions occur in about 25% of patients, they are extremely diverse. These lesions can be divided into specific, including infiltration of the skin by leukemic cells and the skin form of Richter’s syndrome, secondary skin tumors, nonspecific lesions and associated skin diseases.

Leukemic infiltration of the skin in patients with leukemia is called specific skin lesions (SSL). Many authors associate the unfavorable prognosis with the transformation of CLL with specific infiltration of the skin into Richter syndrome, as well as the appearance of SSL before the diagnosis of CLL. The risk of developing various cancer pathologies in patients with CLL is three times higher than in healthy people identical in sex and age. It was found that the risk of skin cancer in these patients is eight times higher than in the healthy population. The most common secondary skin tumors in CLL are basal-cell carcinoma, squamous-cell carcinoma, melanoma, and Merkel tumor.

Nonspecific skin changes are extremely diverse and occur in patients with CLL in 30–50% of cases. The most common secondary changes in the skin in CLL are those of infectious nature. There are also increased reactions to insect bites, generalized itching, exfoliative erythroderma, nodular erythema, paraneoplastic pemphigoid, bullous pemphigoid, drug eruption. Concomitant dermatoses in these patients are more severe and often torpid to the previously conducted therapy. There is no doubt that together with the clarification of the etiology and pathogenesis of CLL, particular issues related to the study of clinical and morphological changes in individual organs and systems, in particular the skin, formed at various stages of the development of this disease should be studied in detail. This can not only expand and clarify our understanding of this pathology, but also can help to clarify the essence of the disease.

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Title: Cutaneous manifestations of B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia
Authors: Elena A. Morozova
Olga Yu. Olisova
Eugene A. Nikitin
Publication date: 01-10-2020
Publisher: Springer Singapore
Keywords: Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia
Leukemia
Skin Cancer
Published in: International Journal of Hematology / Issue 4/2020
Print ISSN: 0925-5710
Electronic ISSN: 1865-3774
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12185-020-02978-8

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