Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on acute dermatology referrals in a secondary and tertiary care Central London hospital. A retrospective comparison review of pre-COVID-19 era and COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Although Dermatology is largely considered an outpatient specialty, there is an increasing need for Dermatology input in the acute and inpatient setting. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dermatology services had to be reorganized to facilitate staff redeployment and minimize the risk of exposure to COVID-19 for patients and staff. This led to an unprecedented increase in teleconsultations aided by clinical images. OBJECTIVES: The main aim of our retrospective study was to analyse the acute Dermatology referrals received in the pre-COVID-19 era and during COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: We retrospectively analysed acute Dermatology referrals using the acute referral log. RESULTS: We retrospectively analysed 500 and 110 acute Dermatology referrals received in the pre-COVID-19 period and during COVID-19 pandemic, respectively. In the pre-COVID-19 era, consultations were most commonly requested by Oncology/Haemato-Oncology, Emergency Departments and General Practice, while during the COVID-19 pandemic General Practice was the most common source of referrals. A wide variety of dermatological conditions were encountered with the most common been eczematous dermatoses. CONCLUSIONS: Although Dermatology is largely an outpatient-based specialty, this study shows the demand for urgent Dermatology input the care of sick patients with severe skin diseases and in the management of skin problems in patients admitted or receiving treatment for other diseases. Re-organization of Dermatology services during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a marked increase in teleconsultations (28% versus 84.5%) and highlighted the importance of complete skin-directed physical examination by the referring clinician as well as procurement of good quality clinical images.

Eczematoid graft-vs-host disease: a novel form of chronic cutaneous graft-vs-host disease and its response to psoralen UV-A therapy.

BACKGROUND: Chronic cutaneous graft-vs-host disease (GVHD) is generally classified by whether lesions have a lichenoid or sclerodermatous morphology. Other unusual clinical forms have been reported that exhibit the features of dermatomyositis and lupus erythematosus. Within a large population of individuals who underwent allogeneic stem cell transplantation because of hematologic malignancy, a group of patients was identified in whom severe and persistent eczema developed. OBSERVATIONS: We prospectively evaluated 10 adult patients with unexplained eczematous dermatosis after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. The dermatosis developed between 2 and 18 months (mean, 7.5 months) after receipt of the transplant, exhibited the typical clinical features of dermatitis, and became erythrodermic in each case. The patient group had strong risk factors for chronic cutaneous GVHD: 8 had received a transplant from an unrelated donor, 7 had evidence of extracutaneous GVHD, and 7 had a history of acute cutaneous GVHD. Sampling of lesional skin revealed the histologic features of GVHD coexisting with the changes of dermatitis. The patients were treated with topical corticosteroid and systemic immunosuppressive agents. Six patients also received psoralen-UV-A. Four patients achieved prolonged remission. Six patients died, 5 of infective complications and 1 of relapsed leukemia. CONCLUSIONS: The eczematous dermatosis observed represents a novel form of chronic cutaneous GVHD that we named eczematoid GVHD. Eczematoid GVHD is an aggressive, chronic dermatosis that requires substantial immunosuppression therapy to achieve control. It is associated with a poor prognosis. Although atopy can be transmitted to an individual from a hematopoietic stem cell transplant, none of the donors in this series gave a history of an atopic disorder. Therefore, other factors must be implicated in provoking the expression of an eczematous phenotype in individuals with underlying chronic graft-vs-host activity.