Skin findings of patients hospitalised in the gastroenterology department

Objective: The purpose of the study is to define the skin findings of gastroenterology inpatient clinic patients. Material and Method: Patients who were under treatment in the Gastroenterology Department of our hospital between November 2012-April 2013were included in the study. Patients’ age, gender and disease information were recorded. All patients were examined by the same dermatologist. Results: A total of 89 patients (37 (41.5%) female, 52 (58.4%) male) were included in the study. The mean age of the patients was 52.79 (20-85) years. The patients were followed up with the diagnosis of different gastrointestinal diseases, including inflammatory bowel diseases (33.7%), liver cirrhosis (33.7%), other hepatobiliary diseases (12.3%), malignancies (10.1%) and pancreatitis (8.9%). Dermatologic examination revealed that 36 patients (40.4%) had pigmentation disorders, 32 patients (35.9%) had xerosis cutis, 31 patients (34.8%) had bacterial and fungal infections and 21 (23.5%) had various nail changes. As spesific skin findings; 1 (1.1%) patient with ulcerative colitis had psoriasis vulgaris, 1 (1.1%) patient with Crohn’s disease had vitiligo, 1 (1.1%) patient with Kaposi’s sarcoma had the nodules of the Kaposi’s sarcoma in oral mucosa, 1 (1.1%) patient with liver cirrhosis had palmar erythema and 1 (1.1%) tuberculous peritonitis had erythema nodosum. Conclusion: In our study we defined a small number of spesific skin findings of gastrointestinal diseases.