Abstract:

Background : Skin tag is a benign tumor of the skin with papules, filiform or pedunculated clinical feature with soft consistency, skin-like to brownish colored and often arises in the flexure area. Etiopathogenesis of skin tag is still unclear, but one of the etiology is associated with leptin hormone. Increased levels of serum leptin level are expected occuring in patients with skin tag. Objective : To determine the differences between serum leptin levels in skin tag patients and controls. Subjects and method : This study is an analytic study with cross sectional design involving 33 subjects with skin tag and 33 healthy controls. Diagnosis of skin tag was made based on history and clinical examination, we conducted blood sampling and measurement of serum leptin level to the patients and controls. Results : In this study, we found the mean serum leptin levels of skin tag patients were highest on aged group 40-49 years (36.21 ± 10.03 ng/ml). The mean serum leptin level of female skin tag patients (36.98 ± 17.67 ng/ml) was higher compared to male (28.32 ± 12.04 ng/ml). The mean serum leptin level of skin tag patients with a family history (34.69 ± 12.77 ng/ml) was higher compared to patients without family history (20.30 ± 8.63 ng/ml). The mean serum leptin level in the skin tag group (29.89 ± 13.34 ng/ml) was higher compared to the control group (22.53 ± 12.91 ng/ml) with p = 0.034. Conclusion : There were significant differences in serum leptin levels between skin tag patients and control.

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