A 71-year-old woman, discharged after total hip replacement arthroplasty, returned to the hospital on postoperative day 9 with a 3-day history of itchy eczematous lesion around the surgical wound (Fig. ). The patient was afebrile, and there was no warmth, redness, or tenderness on wound examination. A blood test at that time showed the following: white blood cell (WBC) count, 5100/μL (normal 4000–10,000/μL); erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), 84 mm/h (normal 0–20 mm/h); and C-reactive protein (CRP), 4.43 mg/dL (normal 0–0.6 mg/dL). The patient's inflammatory markers were mildly elevated compared with the blood test results 5 days earlier: WBC, 3600/μL; ESR, 30 mm/h; and CRP, 2.46 mg/dL. Because SSI could not be ruled out, the patient received cefazolin, 2 g, intravenously. The next day, the patient was diagnosed with contact dermatitis at the dermatology clinic and treated with local steroid ointment without additional antibiotics. Also, the mesh applied at the surgical wound was removed immediately. The skin lesion resolved after 1 week of treatment.
A 37-year-old woman developed an itchy erythemato-eczematous and papulovesicular lesion around her surgical wound on the fourth postoperative week (Fig. ). After treatment with an antihistamine and local steroid ointment, the skin lesions resolved completely.