What are the different symptoms of different types of vulvar leukoplakia patients?

According to the differences in clinical tissue pathological changes, vulvar leukoplakia can be divided into the following three types.

1. Squamous epithelial hyperplasia

Squamous epithelial hyperplasia type vulvar leukoplakia is characterized by vulvar itching as the main symptom, which is more common in postmenopausal or childbearing female patients. Since scratching the local area stimulates nerve fibers, the patient's itching symptoms can be temporarily relieved, but scratching will cause further damage to the skin and trigger new itching reactions, making the symptoms more severe and falling into a vicious cycle. When the lesion is mild, the patient's skin color at the lesion is dark red or pink, and the hyperkeratotic area is white. Long-term scratching and friction can easily make the skin thicken like leather, with obvious prominent skin texture and raised skin ridges, and multiple small polygonal flat papules clustered in patches, with lichenification.

2. Lichen sclerosus

The main symptoms of lichen sclerosus vulvar leukoplakia are atrophy and thinning of the vulva and perianal skin. This disease generally has a family history, and some patients will have concurrent autoimmune diseases such as alopecia areata, vitiligo, and hyperthyroidism.

3. Mixed malnutrition

Mixed dystrophic vulvar leukoplakia is a mixed type of disease that occurs when the disease of patients with proliferative and atrophic types develops to the middle or late stages. The main symptoms of patients include severe hyperkeratosis of the skin and repeated shedding of the keratin layer, severe vulvar itching, or vulvar edema, chapped skin, ulceration, erosion, etc. due to scratching. In severe cases, there may even be atrophy of the vulva and urethra.