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Review
. 2021;237(1):1-12.
doi: 10.1159/000512932. Epub 2020 Nov 24.

Skin Manifestations Associated with COVID-19: Current Knowledge and Future Perspectives

Giovanni Genovese  1   2 , Chiara Moltrasio  1   3 , Emilio Berti  1   2 , Angelo Valerio Marzano  4   5
Affiliations
Review

Skin Manifestations Associated with COVID-19: Current Knowledge and Future Perspectives

Giovanni Genovese et al. Dermatology. 2021.

Abstract

Background: Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) is an ongoing global pandemic caused by the "severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2" (SARS-CoV-2), which was isolated for the first time in Wuhan (China) in December 2019. Common symptoms include fever, cough, fatigue, dyspnea and hypogeusia/hyposmia. Among extrapulmonary signs associated with COVID-19, dermatological manifestations have been increasingly reported in the last few months.

Summary: The polymorphic nature of COVID-19-associated cutaneous manifestations led our group to propose a classification, which distinguishes the following six main clinical patterns: (i) urticarial rash, (ii) confluent erythematous/maculopapular/morbilliform rash, (iii) papulovesicular exanthem, (iv) chilblain-like acral pattern, (v) livedo reticularis/racemosa-like pattern, (vi) purpuric "vasculitic" pattern. This review summarizes the current knowledge on COVID-19-associated cutaneous manifestations, focusing on clinical features and therapeutic management of each category and attempting to give an overview of the hypothesized pathophysiological mechanisms of these conditions.

Keywords: COVID-19; Cutaneous manifestations; SARS-CoV-2.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Clinical features of COVID-19-associated cutaneous manifestations.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Histopathological features of the main cutaneous patterns associated with COVID-19. a Urticarial rash. b Confluent erythematous maculopapular/morbilliform rash. c Chilblain-like acral lesions. d Purpuric “vasculitic” pattern.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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