Cutaneous lymphomas (CLs) represent a group of lymphoproliferative disorders that can be difficult to diagnose in the early stage because it could mimic many benign inflammatory dermatosis (chronic eczema, bullous dermatitis, idiopathic erythroderma, psoriasis) .
Considering that the incidence increases with age, a rigorous clinical and histopathological monitoring of elderly patients diagnosed with recurrent benign dermatitis must be performed.
We retrospectively reviewed dates from 112 patients with various skin manifestation(parapsoriasis, lymphomatoid papulosis, psoriasis) diagnosed as CLs in the University Clinic of Dermatology and Venereology, Timisoara between the year 2006 and January 2014. From this lot there were selected only the medical files of patients over 60 years of age.
Of the 50 cases studied 17 were classic CLs and 33 were large plaque parapsoriasis(LPP). In the CLs group there were 15 patients (88,23%) with Primary Cutaneous T cell lymphoma (PCTCL) and 2 patients (11,76%) with Primary Cutaneous B cell lymphoma (PCBCL). There was an evident male predominance.
The aim of the study was to present unusual skin manifestations of CLs in the elderly patients and to underline the necessity of rigorous monitoring/long term follow-up as well as exhaustive histopathological analysis for the diagnosis.