Treatment of mycosis fungoides with bexarotene results in remission of diffuse plane xanthomas.

Stamatis Gregoriou, Dimitris Rigopoulos, Christos Stamou, Vasiliki Nikolaou, George Kontochristopoulos

Department of Dermatology, University of Athens Medical School, Athens, Greece. stamgreg@yahoo.gr

Journal of cutaneous medicine and surgery 2013 Jan-Feb

filter terms:

Cutaneous xanthomas develop as a result of intracellular and dermal deposition of lipids in either hyper- or normolipidemic patients. Plane xanthomas may signal the presence of an underlying monoclonal gammopathy, chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, or cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. Investigators have suggested that xanthomatized T cells may result in induction of plane xanthomas. We report the case of a patient with mycosis fungoides (MF) and plane xanthomas who was treated with bexarotene for his MF. Significant improvement in the clinical signs of MF was observed within 3 months. We also observed a substantial regression of the xanthomas after 5 months of treatment. Complete clinical remission of both the MF and xanthomas was obtained after 6 months. The patient was still free of xanthomas after 3 years of follow-up. Bexarotene led to the clearing of the cutaneous lesions of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma and plane xanthomas. This may be due to an effect of bexarotene on the aberrant T cells that may cause xanthomatization.

Citation

Stamatis Gregoriou, Dimitris Rigopoulos, Christos Stamou, Vasiliki Nikolaou, George Kontochristopoulos. Treatment of mycosis fungoides with bexarotene results in remission of diffuse plane xanthomas. Journal of cutaneous medicine and surgery. 2013 Jan-Feb;17(1):52-4