Soft tissue
Vascular
Nonneoplastic
Bacillary angiomatosis
Author: Vijay Shankar, M.D.
Last author update: 1 November 2012
Last staff update: 7 December 2020
Copyright: 2003-2023, PathologyOutlines.com, Inc.
PubMed Search: Bacillary angiomatosis [title] soft tissue
Table of Contents
Definition / general | Case reports | Treatment | Clinical images | Gross description | Microscopic (histologic) description | Microscopic (histologic) images | Differential diagnosisCite this page: Shankar V. Bacillary angiomatosis. PathologyOutlines.com website. https://www.pathologyoutlines.com/topic/softtissuebacillary.html. Accessed June 6th, 2023.
Definition / general
- Opportunistic infection of immunocompromised, first described in AIDS, manifesting as vascular proliferations in bone, CNS, skin, other organs
- Rarely imunocompetent individuals (Indian J Dermatol Venereol Leprol 2010;76:682)
- Caused by infection with Bartonella species (gram negative rods), either Bartonella henselae (causes cat-scratch disease, reservoir in cats, vector is cat flea), B. quintana (cause of trench fever during WW I, reservoir in humans, vector is human body louse) or other species; transmitted via traumatic inoculation of skin
- Bacillary peliosis: related vascular lesion of liver and spleen
Case reports
- 23 year old HIV+ woman with disseminated disease (Rev Soc Bras Med Trop 2011;44:641)
- 59 year old immunocompetent woman with no exposure to cats (Indian J Dermatol Venereol Leprol 2010;76:682)
- 66 year old woman with onset after chemotherapy for CLL (J Med Microbiol 2011;60:142)
Treatment
- Erythromycin
Clinical images
Contributed by Mark R. Wick, M.D.
Palm, simulating pyogenic granuloma
Images hosted on other servers:
Skin: nodules with ulceration
Skin: at site of burn
Gross description
- Moist, eruptive, cutaneous lesion
Microscopic (histologic) description
- Acute neutrophilic inflammation with vascular proliferation and prominent endothelial cells with nuclear atypia and mitotic figures
- Nuclear dust and granular material (bacteria) present
- Bacteria highlighted by silver stain
Microscopic (histologic) images
Contributed by Mark R. Wick, M.D.
Images hosted on other servers:
Dermal lobular vascular proliferation with swollen endothelial cells and bacteria (Warthin-Starry)
Mixed inflammation, capillary proliferation
Differential diagnosis
