Skin Manifestations Associated with COVID-19: Current Knowledge and Future Perspectives

Review Dermatology

. 2021;237(1):1-12. doi: 10.1159/000512932. Epub 2020 Nov 24.

Giovanni Genovese 1 2, Chiara Moltrasio 1 3, Emilio Berti 1 2, Angelo Valerio Marzano 4 5

Abstract

Background: Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) is an ongoing global pandemic caused by the "severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2" (SARS-CoV-2), which was isolated for the first time in Wuhan (China) in December 2019. Common symptoms include fever, cough, fatigue, dyspnea and hypogeusia/hyposmia. Among extrapulmonary signs associated with COVID-19, dermatological manifestations have been increasingly reported in the last few months.

Summary: 

The polymorphic nature of COVID-19-associated cutaneous manifestations led our group to propose a classification, which distinguishes the following six main clinical patterns: 

(i) urticarial rash, 

(ii) confluent erythematous/maculopapular/morbilliform rash, 

(iii) papulovesicular exanthem, 

(iv) chilblain-like acral pattern, 

(v) livedo reticularis/racemosa-like pattern, 

(vi) purpuric "vasculitic" pattern. 

This review summarizes the current knowledge on COVID-19-associated cutaneous manifestations, focusing on clinical features and therapeutic management of each category and attempting to give an overview of the hypothesized pathophysiological mechanisms of these conditions.

Keywords: COVID-19; Cutaneous manifestations; SARS-CoV-2.