Adnexal Tumors of Skin: An Experience at a Tertiary Care Center at Delhi

Abstract

Background: Adnexal skin tumors are a heterogeneous group of uncommon tumors usually misdiagnosed clinically due to a huge variety of types and their variants. Histopathology usually helps in establishing the diagnosis. Aims: The study was undertaken to analyze the morphological, clinical, and histological features of adnexal tumors (ATs) of the skin at our center over a period of 4 years.

Subjects and Methods: retrospective study was conducted over a period of 4 years (April 2010–March 2014), comprising 25 ATs of skin diagnosed in the Department of Pathology, Hamdard Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi. All the consecutively reported AT cases were reviewed and reclassified as AT arising from sebaceous glands, hair follicles, or sweat glands. The concordance of clinical and histopathological diagnosis was also assessed.

Results: Most of the ATs were benign (24/25) with head and neck being the most common location (72%). Nearly 56% of the tumors exhibited sweat gland differentiation,  28% hair follicle differentiation, and sebaceous gland tumors accounted for 16%. The most common varieties of tumors encountered in the present study included hidradenoma papilliferum and pilomatricoma. The concordance between clinical and histopathological diagnosis was found to be 50% approximately.

Conclusions: ATs of the skin are rare neoplasms with benign tumors being far more common. They are often misdiagnosed clinically, so histopathology remains the gold standard for establishing an accurate diagnosis of skin ATs.

Keywords: Adnexal tumors, hair follicle differentiation, sebaceous, sweat gland