Prosector's Wart

Prosector's Wart

Tuberculosis verrucosa cutis (also known as "Lupus verrucosus," "Prosector's wart," and "Warty tuberculosis")is a rash of small, red papular nodules in the skin that may appear 2-4 weeks after inoculation by Mycobacterium tuberculosis in a previously infected and immunocompetent individual.

It is so called because it was a common occupational disease of prosectors, the preparers of dissections and autopsies. Reinfection by tuberculosis via the skin, therefore, can result from accidental exposure to human tuberculous tissue in physicians, pathologists and laboratory workers; or to tissues of other infected animals, in veterinarians, butchers, etc. Other names given to this form of skin tuberculosis are anatomist's wart and verruca necrogenica (literally, generated by corpses).

TVC is one of the many forms of cutaneous tuberculosis, such as the tuberculous chancre (which results from the inoculation in people without immunity, and the reactivation cutaneous tuberculosis (the most common one, which appears in previously infected patients). Other forms of cutaneous tuberculosis are: lupus vulgaris, scrofuloderma, lichen scrofulosorum, erythema induratum and the papulonecrotic tuberculid.

It was described by René Laennec in 1826.