Symmetrical, painful ulceration of the lower limbs in a vascular surgery ward: a diagnostic challenge. Pyoderma gangrenosum associated with IgG-kappa paraproteinaemia.
We describe a 61-year-old patient who had been suffering from chronic ulcers of both legs for 18 months. Initially, his condition was diagnosed as ischaemic because of an ankle-brachial index of 0.6, as confirmed by additional angiography. A successful femoro-infragenual bypass procedure was performed, but the ulcers increased in size and number. He was then extensively analysed for a possible (macro)vascular origin of his symptoms. Angiographic analysis of both legs showed no arterial stenosis or occlusion. Despite the extensive experience of the vascular surgeons with leg ulcers, consultations by internal medicine, vascular medicine and dermatology, and tissue examination by our pathologists, pyoderma gangrenosum was not recognised. During a multidisciplinary meeting one of the specialists, to whom the lesions were shown, immediately considered the diagnosis on clinical grounds. The additional finding of IgG-kappa paraproteinaemia and improvement of the ulcers on treatment with corticosteroids were consistent with the diagnosis. Although the majority of patients on the vascular surgery ward have ulcers caused by ischaemia or a combined arterial/venous origin, another (rare) cause, namely pyoderma gangrenosum in association with IgG-kappa paraproteinaemia without the presence of multiple myeloma, should be taken into account.