Mycobacterium abscessusinfection secondary to mesotherapy

Conflict of interest: none declared. First developed in France in 1952, mesotherapy consists of injecting drugs or other substances into intradermal or subcutaneous tissue for use in medical and cosmetic treatments.1 Its use in aesthetic medicine has increased considerably in recent years.2 We report two cases of Mycobacterium abscessus infection secondary to mesotherapy. Patient 1 was a 54‐year‐old woman, who presented with a 3‐week history of a hard, erythematous plaque, 50 × 30 mm in size, on the right buttock (Fig. 1). She had been undergoing weekly mesotherapy for weight loss for 8 months, using an unknown substance administered by a private practitioner. A biopsy was taken. Histopathology showed an acute and chronic inflammatory infiltrate with giant cells involving the upper and lower dermis and fat (Fig. 2). Periodic‐acid–Schiff stain was negative. A second punch biopsy was taken, which showed acid–alcohol‐resistant bacilli on Ziehl–Neelsen staining, but mycobacteriological culture was negative.