NODULAR VASCULAR DISEASES OF THE LEGS

Abstract

There is a group of diseases which involve primarily the legs, characterized by the presence of nodules and sometimes by ulceration and which are associated with varying degrees of involvement of the blood vessels and fibrosis. These diseases, which have many features in common, are nodular vasculitis, erythema induratum, erythrocyanosis and pernio, erythema nodosum, panniculitis, recurrent idiopathic thrombophlebitis, and indurated cellulitis and ulceration secondary to chronic venous stasis. Our especial interest in these diseases was aroused because they have certain clinical features in common which often make a differential diagnosis difficult or impossible on clinical grounds alone. Likewise it is difficult to correlate the vascular involvement, which may be of varying degree and sometimes of different types in each disease with the clinical findings. Furthermore, histopathologic studies of tissue excised from the nodules and ulcers have not simplified the problem, especially as to the etiologic relationship of tuberculosis in some