Correlation between Serum Leptin Level with Type and Number of Lesion Skin Tag

BACKGROUND: Skin tag is a benign tumour of connective tissue in the skin, sessile or pedunculated, skin-like to brownish coloured and often arises in the flexure area. Etiopathogenesis of skin tag is still unclear, but one of the aetiology is associated with leptin hormone. AIM: To determine the correlation between leptin serum level with type and number of the lesion skin tag. METHODS: This study is an observational analytic study with a cross-sectional design involving 33 skin tag patients. Diagnosis of skin tag was based on history and clinical examination; we conducted blood sampling and measurement of serum leptin level to the patients. RESULTS: We found the mean serum leptin level of skin tag patients were highest on the type of lesion mixed (31.54 ± 12.85 ng/ml). The mean number of skin tag lesions was 13.6 ± 5.8 lesions. There is a very high positive correlation between serum leptin level with a number of skin tag (r = 0.86) with p < 0.05 and significant correlation between serum leptin level with the type of lesions (p = 0.037). CONCLUSION: Serum leptin level has a very high positive correlation to a number of skin tag and significant correlation between serum leptin level with the type of lesion.