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Tuberculosis of the eyelid skin
Last reviewed: 07.07.2025
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Tuberculosis of the skin of the eyelids can occur with exogenous and hematogenous infection.
Tuberculosis of the skin of the eyelids is rare. In case of exogenous infection, mycobacterium tuberculosis gets on the skin from the environment. The entry points of infection can be cracks, abrasions, macerations of the skin epithelium. The literature describes cases of skin tuberculosis without damage to its integrity. At the site of infection, a typical tuberculous granuloma with a tendency to necrosis, caseous involvement of regional lymph nodes in the process (primary complex) occurs.
More often, tuberculosis of the skin of the eyelids is a manifestation of tuberculosis of multiple localization and occurs with lymphohematogenous metastasis in the presence of bacillemia. The process can also transition from the surrounding tissues of the skin of the paraorbital region, face, lacrimal sac, conjunctiva.
Tuberculosis of the skin of the eyelids is characterized by the appearance of tuberculous tubercles in the skin in the form of small yellowish-pink infiltrates, rising above the surface of the skin, with necrosis and subsequent scarring. When scarring of a tuberculous lesion of the skin of the eyelid, its deformations and eversion may occur, which leads to non-closure of the eyelids.
In vulgar lupus, skin infiltrates are located on the eyelids and can spread to the intermarginal space and conjunctiva of the eyelids, causing their scarring; systemic lupus erythematosus is not a tuberculous disease, but a systemic disease of connective tissue.
Scrofuloderma occurs in the thickness of the skin in the form of nodes with necrosis, forms ulcers and fistulas. Their contents contain mycobacteria tuberculosis. With scrofuloderma, rough scarring of the skin is noted, which, depending on the localization of the process, can lead to shortening, eversion of the eyelids, failure to close the eye slit.
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