A previously healthy 28-year-old woman presented to the outpatient department of a French clinic complaining of a painful rash on her right thigh. Five days earlier, she had been walking on the coastal rocks of one of the islands of the Cyclades, a group of Greek islands known for their large populations of sea anemones (Actiniaria). There, the woman fell, landing on her buttocks, and immediately felt severe pain in her right thigh, after which itching and redness developed in that area. She could not see what had stung her. After washing the lesion with sea water, she applied a softening cream to it. Doctors Weniko Caré and Raphaële Mestiri shared their case in the New England Journal of Medicine.
On examination, multiple thin, erythematous, linear skin lesions were observed, arranged radially with an area of unchanged skin in the center on the back of the right thigh. Based on the examination results, the patient was diagnosed with a sea anemone burn. Most sea anemones are harmless to humans, but the stinging venom of some of them can cause local inflammation of the skin, and in some species it has pronounced toxicity up to a lethal outcome. The woman was prescribed topical glucocorticoids and an emollient cream. At a follow-up examination three months later, only moderate residual hyperpigmentation remained on the skin.
