Imbedded Hair Resembling Larva Migrans

Abstract

A recent publication by Dr. Arthur Pratt¹reported an instance of hyperkeratosis of the heel caused by an imbedded hair. This woman patient, suffering from a neuropathy, may have had her lesion as long as seven years. The presumption was that the patient had contacted the cut hairs of her husband's beard while dragging her paralyzed leg across the floor. Joseph and Gifford²reported interdigital pilonidal sinuses, attributed to imbedded hair, occurring in 15 barbers in the San Francisco area. In pathologic studies they showed the earliest change to be imbedding of hair in the epidermis with reactive thickening of this tissue around it. The severest changes revealed the hair lying free in the dermis, causing a foreign-body type of reaction. In the latter they noted epithelialized tracts forming around the hair, which with resultant secondary infection became inflamed and converted into branching sinuses. The