chancre

Introduction

The primary lesion of syphilis, (or lesions resembling this).

Clinical manifestations

• begins at the site of cutaneous or mucosal infection after an incubation period of 10-30 days
• the initial lesion is papular, dull red, hard & painless
• the papule generally ulcerates, with healing over 4-6 weeks

Laboratory

• darkfield microscopy of scraping for Treponema pallidum
• Treponema microdentium (endogenous flora) may confound microscopic examination of oral ulcers

More general terms

• abnormal morphologic structure (malformation)