Skin manifestations of COVID-19

Abstract

The infection caused by the recently identified SARS-CoV-2, dubbed coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19), has become a pandemic. With exponential growth of morbidity among the people around the world, the clinical characteristics of COVID-19 are becoming clearer and description of new disease symptoms descriptions is emerging. The sufficient amount of descriptions of various skin manifestations in patients with COVID-19 has appeared, however they are characterized by great heterogeneity. The pathogenetic mechanisms of the development of skin rashes in patients with COVID-19 are currently unknown, however, hypotheses have been put forward that they have an overactive immune response, activation of the complement system and microvascular damage. Based on the published literature data and our own experience, the following characteristic types of skin rashes can be distinguished among the skin manifestations of this viral disease: urticaria, confluent, papulovesicular exanthema, acral rashes similar to frostbite, livedo reticularis and purpura. Possible development of skin lesions against the background of the development of COVID-19 provides the need to inform dermatologists about the features of the skin manifestations of this disease, as well as to study further these symptoms of COVID-19 to determine their diagnostic and prognostic value.

Keywords

• covid-19
• skin rash
• urticaria
• vasculitis
• livedo
• papulovesicular exanthema
• purpura