Significance of Acanthosis Nigricans as Marker for Metabolic Syndrome

Metabolic syndrome refers to a clustering of metabolic risk factors including central obesity, glucose intolerance, hyperinsulinemia, low HDL cholesterol, high triglycerides and hypertension. MS is increasingly being recognized as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and cardiovascular mortality. Lipoatrophy, acanthosis nigricans is a skin markers associated with this syndrome.Acanthosis nigricans is a brown to black, poorly defined, velvety hyperpigmentation of the skin. It is usually found in body folds, such as the posterior and lateral folds of the neck, the axilla, groin, umbilicus, forehead. It is associated with obesity, endocrinopathies, internal malignancies. The most common cause of acanthosis nigricans is insulin resistance, which leads to increased circulating insulin levels. Insulin spillover into the skin results in its abnormal increase in growth This work was carried out to find out specificity and sensitivity of acanthosis nigricans as skin marker for metabolic syndrome. This study is a cross sectional study. Male and female patients of age > 20 years were selected.exclusion criteria: History of Diabetes mellitus, Hypertension, Dyslipidemia, Pregnant women, smoking,alcohol study sample size 100. Patients Waist circumference, Fasting blood sugar and lipids, blood pressure were investigated. Acanthosis nigricans was looked for in all patients. Result: that S30 out of 48 patients who tested positive for metabolic syndrome had acanthosis.Sensitivity and specificity were 62.50% and 94.23% In in conclusionAcanthosis nigricans as a marker for metabolic syndrome has high specificity and good sensitivity.