Abstract
Background: Hypopigmented mycosis fungoides (MF) is a variant of primary cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. Although the prognosis of hypopigmented mycosis fungoides is excellent, the diagnosis is usually missed.
Objective: The study aimed to identified the prevalence of patients with hypopigmented mycosis fungoides presenting hypopigmentation in Phramongkutklao Hospital, Bangkok, Thailand. We also reported the characteristic of hypopigmented mycosis fungoides among patients presenting hypopigmentation and compared clinical presentations between patients with a diagnosis of hypopigmented mycosis fungoides and patients with other diagnoses
Materials and Methods: We conducted a retrospective among 56 patients presenting hypopigmentation and receiving skin biopsies at Division of Dermatology, Department of Medicine, Phramongkutklao Hospital, Bangkok, Thailand between January 2016 to December 2021. The data parameters including demographic data, clinical manifestations (symptoms, size and morphology of the lesions, e.g., scale, margin, erythema, atrophy, mottled hypopigmentation, involved body surface area and distribution, histopathologic reports, special stains, final diagnosis, further investigations, treatments, follow-up duration and result of the treatments were recorded.
Results: The prevalence of hypopigmented mycosis fungoides among patient presenting with hypopigmentation was 16.1%. Compared with patients with other diagnoses, patients with hypopigmented mycosis fungoides usually had lesions with ill-defined margins (P-value=0.045) and presence of atrophy lesion (P-value=0.023).
Conclusion: The prevalence of hypopigmented mycosis fungoides involved 16.1% of patients presenting hypopigmentation. The presence of ill-defined margins and atrophic lesions led to suspected hypopigmented MF in our study. This data could be useful in epidemiologic information and might be adapted when choosing lesions for biopsy to diagnose MF.