Beau lines
| Classification according to ICD-10 | |
|---|---|
| L60.4 | Beau-Reil transverse furrows |
| ICD-10 online (WHO version 2019) | |
Beau lines (also called Beau-Reil furrows, after Johannes Christian Reil ) are grooves or furrows that run across the finger or toe across the entire width of the fingernail or toenail . This symptom was first described in 1846 by the French doctor Joseph Honoré Simon Beau . It is an onychomalacia . The beau lines are not to be confused with the grooves that run lengthways from the nail bed to the tip of the finger or toe. Likewise, Mees lines (discoloration of the nail) and Muehrcke lines (Leukonychia striata to always low pigmentation parallel to the whitish lunula ) to distinguish it.
There are various causes for the occurrence of these transverse grooves. On the one hand, an infection of the nail bed or an injury can trigger it, or a skin disease . Systemic causes are also possible, such as malnutrition or chemotherapy . When a child develops Kawasaki syndrome , beau lines can appear one to two months after the acute, febrile phase. These Beau-Reil transverse furrows are physiological in infants at the end of the fourth week of life . Furthermore, these lines appeared after saturation dives at depths of more than 300 meters. A disturbance of the cell division in the nail bed is considered to be the direct reason for these Beau lines.
Ötzi , the glacier mummy found in South Tyrol in 1991, had several Beau lines.
Individual evidence
- ^ Günter Thiele (editor): Handlexikon der Medizin , Urban & Schwarzenberg , Munich, Vienna, Baltimore 1980, volume 1 A – E, page 222.
- ^ Willibald Pschyrembel : Clinical Dictionary , De Gruyter , 266th edition, Berlin and Boston 2014, page 243; there referred to as Beau-Reil transverse furrows .
- ↑ Maxim Zetkin , Herbert Schaldach : Dictionary of Medicine , Ullstein Mosby, 15th edition, Berlin 1992, page 242.
- ^ H. Schwartz: Clinical observation: Beau's lines on fingernails after deep saturation dives. In: Undersea & hyperbaric medicine: journal of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, Inc. Volume 33, Number 1, 2006 Jan-Feb, pp. 5-10, PMID 16602251 .