Buimer Mathijs G, Wobbes Theo, Klinkenbijl Jean H G, Reijnen Michel M P J, Blokx Willeke A M
*Department of Surgery, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; †Department of Surgery, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; ‡Department of Surgery, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; §Department of Surgery, Rijnstate Hospital, Arnhem, The Netherlands; and ¶Department of Pathology, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Am J Dermatopathol. 2015 Feb;37(2):129-32. doi: 10.1097/DAD.0000000000000206.
Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is an inflammatory follicular skin disease. In women and men, the condition starts after puberty, has a peak in the third decade, and is rare after the menopause in women. This age distribution suggests a hormonal influence in the pathogenesis of the disease. We therefore hypothesized that apocrine glands in HS patients have a different expression of androgen receptor (AR) and estrogen receptor (ER) compared with healthy skin.
Axillary, inguinal, and perianal skin biopsies from female and male patients with HS were immunohistochemically stained for AR and ER activities. Expression of both receptors in apocrine glands of HS patients was compared with expression in apocrine glands in normal axillary or inguinal skin of a control group of women.
Twenty-two patients with HS were included (16 women), with 10 women in the control group. In the HS group, apocrine glands were present in 11 out of 22 skin biopsies and in the control group in 4 out of 10 biopsies. Expression of ER in the apocrine gland was weak and observed in 2 out of 4 patients in the control group and in none of the HS patients. Expression of the AR was strong and observed in all apocrine glands in both groups.
We could not demonstrate a significant difference in the expression of ER and AR in apocrine glands in skin biopsies of patients with HS, compared with healthy skin biopsies. The exact relation between sex hormones and occurrence of HS therefore remains unclear.
化脓性汗腺炎（HS）是一种炎症性毛囊皮肤疾病。在男性和女性中，该病始于青春期后，在第三个十年达到高峰，在女性绝经后罕见。这种年龄分布表明激素在该疾病的发病机制中起作用。因此，我们假设与健康皮肤相比，HS患者的顶泌汗腺具有不同的雄激素受体（AR）和雌激素受体（ER）表达。
对患有HS的女性和男性患者的腋窝、腹股沟和肛周皮肤活检组织进行AR和ER活性的免疫组织化学染色。将HS患者顶泌汗腺中两种受体的表达与对照组女性正常腋窝或腹股沟皮肤顶泌汗腺中的表达进行比较。
纳入22例HS患者（16例女性），对照组有10例女性。在HS组中，22例皮肤活检组织中有11例存在顶泌汗腺，对照组10例活检组织中有4例存在。对照组4例患者中有2例顶泌汗腺中ER表达较弱，而HS患者中均未观察到。两组所有顶泌汗腺中AR表达均较强。
与健康皮肤活检相比，我们未能证明HS患者皮肤活检组织中顶泌汗腺的ER和AR表达存在显著差异。因此，性激素与HS发生的确切关系仍不清楚。
