Case report: Cutaneous leishmaniasis misdiagnosed as pyoderma gangrenosum

Abstract

With an estimated prevalence of 0.7%, pyoderma gangrenosum (PG) is the most frequent type of reactive skin lesions seen in the setting of inflammatory bowel disease, together with metastatic Crohn's disease. However, in the case of persistent cutaneous ulcerations in patients with Crohn's disease under biologic and/or immunosuppressive therapy, infectious or malignant etiologies should be excluded. We report a case of multiple difficult-to-treat skin ulcerations due to Leishmania in a patient with Crohn's disease treated with antitumor necrosis factor-alpha drugs, misinterpreted for a long time as PG.