Epidemiological observations and management challenges in extrapedal mycetoma: A three-decade review of 420 cases.

Mycetoma is a serious, destructive, disfiguring chronic granulomatous inflammatory disease affecting the subcutaneous tissues that spread to involve the skin, deep tissues and bone. The disease predominately affects the limbs, and extrapedal mycetoma is rarely reported. The reported extrapedal ones...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
Main Authors: Abubakr Abdalla Mohammed Alhaj, Eiman Siddig Ahmed, Abeer Hassan, Ahmed Hassan Fahal
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0011841
https://doaj.org/article/8e53b3595ab4484cbc5216d9b6b15299
Description
Summary:Mycetoma is a serious, destructive, disfiguring chronic granulomatous inflammatory disease affecting the subcutaneous tissues that spread to involve the skin, deep tissues and bone. The disease predominately affects the limbs, and extrapedal mycetoma is rarely reported. The reported extrapedal ones are characterised by high morbidity and mortality. This communication reports on 420 patients with extrapedal mycetoma seen and managed at the Mycetoma Research Centre (MRC), University of Khartoum, between January 1991 and December 2021. In this descriptive, cross-sectional, hospital-based study, the electronic records of all mycetoma-confirmed patients seen during the study period were carefully and meticulously reviewed. The confirmed patients with extrapedal mycetoma were included in this study. The study included 420 patients with extrapedal mycetoma, 298 (70.7%) had eumycetoma, and 122 (29.3%) had actinomycetoma. There were 343 male patients (81.7%) and 77 (18.3%) females, with a male-to-female ratio of 4:1. Their ages ranged between 1.5 and 95 years, with a median of 28 years. Most of the patients were students and farmers. The majority of patients were from El Gezira, North Kordofan, and the White Nile States. Mycetoma was painful in 21%, and a family history of mycetoma was recorded in 11.5% of patients. The buttocks (37.9%) and head and neck (16.9%) were affected most. Less frequently affected sites were the trunk and back (12%) each, abdominal and chest walls (4.5%) each and loin (1%). The prominent clinical presentation findings were multiple sinuses discharging grains (55%), massive swellings (46%), and lymphadenopathy (11.5%). Less commonly observed clinical findings were local hyperhidrosis (5.3%) and dilated tortuous veins close to mycetoma lesions (0.5%). The study showed that 204 patients (48.6%) had clinical improvement in terms of decreased lesion size and healing of sinuses following medical therapy. Sixty-six patients (15.7%) had no noticeable improvement. The lesion continued progressing despite ...