Little known, although widespread in the population, is "molluscum contagiosum", of viral origin (poxviridae), which can affect both adults and children. It is not a dangerous disease, but it should be treated promptly because it spreads easily from person to person.
It causes small, smooth, dome-shaped, pink bumps on the skin, with a typical small depression in the centre. The molluscum lesions can be very small, 0.5-1 millimetre in diameter, but also larger, almost like a small pea. These growths are neither painful nor itchy and for this reason are often underestimated and left untreated. There may be a single one or a few dozen.
Contagion occurs through direct person-to-person contact; in children the exposed parts of the body are therefore generally the most affected: hands (never the palm), arms, legs and face, whereas in adults molluscum contagiosum can also be transmitted through sexual contact and the lesions are more frequent on the abdomen and perineum.
The virus responsible for this disease, which belongs to the pox virus family, cannot be grown in a test tube in the laboratory, and there is no specific medical therapy able to fight it.
Treatment: the individual lesions simply have to be destroyed. The methods preferred by the dermatologist are generally removal with a curette.
