Association of Acrochordon with Body Mass Index: A Hospital-Based Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Introduction: Acrochordon, also known as skin tag, can be defined as a common benign skin lesion composed of loose fibrous tissue. With recent lifestyle modification, average body mass index has been increasing leading to potential health hazards, including acrochordons. This study was aimed to analyze the association between number, size and color of acrochordon to body mass index.

Methods: This is an observational cross-sectional study conducted among 146 patients with clinically diagnosed acrochordons visiting to the Department of Dermatology of a tertiary level hospital using a consecutive sampling method. Ethical approval was obtained from Institutional Review Committee of the same center prior to data collection (Reference number- PMD2305301730). This study focused to analyze the association between number, size and color of acrochordon to body mass index. The Fisher’s exact test was used to analyze the association between two categorical variables and statistical significance was set at p value of <0.05.

Results: Among 146 participants, 95 (65.06%) were female, and 51 (34.94%) were male. The mean age was 43.31+12.73 years, the mean body mass index was 29.55+4.39. Higher prevalence of acrochordon was seen in obese and pre-obese patients. A significant association was observed between color of acrochordon and body mass index with no association between number and size of acrochordon to body mass index, with p-values of 0.301 and 0.232 respectively.

Conclusions: Most patients with acrochordons in our study were obese or pre-obese with significant association between color of acrochordon and body mass index.