Biomed Pap Med Fac Univ Palacky Olomouc Czech Repub. 2022, 166(4):353-358 | DOI: 10.5507/bp.2022.035

Skin manifestations of pancreatic diseases

Lumir Kunovsky^{a, b, c, d, e}, Petr Dite^{f, g}, Eva Brezinova^{b, h}, Libuse Sedlakovaⁱ, Jan Trna^{b, e}, Petr Jabandziev^{b, j, k}

^a Department of Surgery, University Hospital Brno, Czech Republic

^b Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

^c 2^nd Department of Internal Medicine - Gastroenterology and Geriatrics, University Hospital Olomouc, Czech Republic

^d Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic

^e Department of Gastroenterology and Digestive Endoscopy, Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute, Brno, Czech Republic

^f Department of Gastroenterology and Internal Medicine, University Hospital Brno, Czech Republic

^g Faculty of Medicine, University of Ostrava, Czech Republic

^h 1^st Department of Dermatovenerology, St. Anne's University Hospital, Brno, Czech Republic

ⁱ Department of Dermatology, Military Hospital Brno, Czech Republic

^j Department of Pediatrics, University Hospital Brno, Czech Republic

^k Central European Institute of Technology, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

Although symptoms of pancreatic diseases such as pancreatitis, acute and chronic and, carcinoma of the pancreas are mainly gastrointestinal in nature, the extra-pancreatic symptoms are also important. These include skin symptoms, such as pancreatic panniculitis, acanthosis nigricans, livedo reticularis, necrolytic migratory erythema, cutaneous signs of hemorrhage, as in persons with severe acute pancreatitis, or the finding of cutaneous metastases of pancreatic carcinoma, which may be a sign of advanced disease. The pancreas is therefore one of those organs for which diagnosis and therapy are often multidisciplinary. In this review article, we summarize current knowledge of the possible skin manifestations of pancreatic disorders.

Keywords: acute pancreatitis, chronic pancreatitis, pancreatic cancer, skin lesions, pancreatic panniculitis, livedo reticularis, acanthosis nigricans, necrolytic migratory erythema

Received: March 30, 2022; Revised: July 8, 2022; Accepted: July 8, 2022; Prepublished online: July 22, 2022; Published: December 7, 2022  Show citation