Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Skin Lesions

A young Latin American woman comes into your office for a routine check-up. On physical exam, you find these marks.

Challenge: What's the etiology?

Image shown under GNU Free Documentation License.

2 comments:

Alex said...

looks like faith healing

Craig said...

Skin Lesions.

This is cupping, a cultural practice where an alcohol-soaked cotton ball is placed in a cup and ignited, the cotton ball removed, and the heated cup immediately inverted and placed over the skin. This creates a suction force and may cause superficial burns. This is seen in Middle Eastern, Asian, Latin American, and Eastern European cultures to treat ailments.

Sources: UpToDate; Wikipedia.