Reactive Angioentotheliomatosis

Overview

Reactive angioentotheliomatosis is a rare benign cutaneous vascular disorder. However, microscopically it is important in the differential diagnosis of some vascular malignancies and malignant lymphoma. Two of our patients at the age of 62 and 79 years had a solitary, erythematous, 6 and 9 months slowly evolving asymptomatic lesions over the left shoulder joint. Skin biopsies proved an endothelial proliferation in the dilated vessels corresponding to reactive angioendotheliomatosis. A joint disorder in the unilateral shoulder under the skin lesion could be considered as an etiological stimulus – in the form of progressive polyarthritis in one patient and a serious osteoarthritis with synovitis in the other. In the first patient the lesion disappeared up to 1 year after actinotherapy, the other patient was not treated, the lesion persisted and the patient died 4 years after the diagnosis because of cardiac failure.

Key words:
reactive angioentotheliomatosis – joint disorder – clinical picture – histological picture