Frequency of adnexal tumors. A retrospective analysis

Abstract

Background Adnexal (appendageal) tumors are lesions with a wide range of varieties and differentiation iaffecting hair follicles, sebaceous, apocrine and eccrine glands. Objective To report the frequency of different types of adnexal tumors, their clinical manifestations, average frequency in terms of sex and age, and correspondence between clinical diagnosis and pathological reports. Patients and methods This retrospective study investigated 75 cases of adnexal tumors with clinical and pathological details inHazrat-e-FatemehHospital,Tehran over the past 11 years. The relative incidence of the lesions, sex and age frequency, location of the lesions and correspondence between clinical diagnosis and pathological findings was determined. Results Overall incidence rate was 1.8% with an average age of 33.56 years. The incidence rate in terms of sex did not show a significant difference except in some specific lesions. Concerning tumor type, the most common tumor among females and males was sebaceous nevus (33.3%). Trichilemmal cysts (16%) and pilomatricoma (14.7%) were ranked second and third, respectively. The location of the lesion was mostly found to be in the head and neck areas (70.7%). In 13%of the cases, clinical diagnosis corresponded to pathological findings. Conclusion Adnexal tumours are relatively rare. Sebaceous nevi, pilomatricoma and trichilemmal cysts were the common tumours but exhibited poor clinico-pathological correlation.