[Epidemiology and pathogenesis of donovanosis].

Thirty three cases of donovanosis have been observed at the Dermatology Department of Cayenne's Hospital between 1970 and 1982, only in black people. The high frequency of rectal lesions of passive homosexual patients and the vagina contamination in women without sexual intercourse postulate for the intestinal reservoir of the bacteria, and the possibility of auto-inoculation. There is probably a cellular immune deficit. Donovanosis is often associated with other diseases, and in our practice in French Guyana, with leprosy. The skin of the genitalia is the most frequently infected, the mucosa generally resistant. The intracellular life of the "Donovan bodies" "Calymmatobacterium granulomatosis"--in the cytoplasm of large mononuclear cells seems an argument for an anergic disease.