Are clinicians successful in diagnosing cutaneous adnexal tumors? a retrospective, clinicopathological study

Abstract

Background/aim: Cutaneous adnexal tumors (CAT) are rare tumors originating from the adnexal epithelial parts of the skin. Due toits clinical and histopathological characteristics comparable with other diseases, clinicians and pathologists experience difficulties in itsdiagnosis.We aimed to reveal the clinical and histopathological characteristics of the retrospectively screened cases and to compare the prediagnosesand histopathological diagnoses of clinicians.Materials and methods: The data of the last 5 years were scanned and patients with histopathological diagnosis of CAT were includedin the study.Results: A total of 65 patients, including 39 female and 26 male patients aged between 8 and 88, were included in the study. The femaleto male ratio was 1.5, and the mean age of the patients was 46.15 ± 21.8 years. The benign tumor rate was 95.4%, whereas the malignanttumor rate was 4.6%. 38.5% of the tumors were presenting sebaceous, 35.4% of them were presenting follicular, and 18.5% of themwere presenting eccrine differentiation. It was most commonly seen in the head-neck region with a rate of 66.1%. When clinical andhistopathological prediagnoses were compared, prediagnoses and histopathological diagnoses were compatible in 45% of the cases.Most frequently, it was the basal cell carcinoma, epidermal cyst, and sebaceous hyperplasia identified in preliminary diagnoses.Conclusion: Cutaneous adnexal tumors are very important, as they can accompany different syndromes and may be malignant. Due todifficulties in its clinical diagnosis, histopathological examination must be performed from suspicious lesions for definitive diagnosis.