Case series of skin adnexal tumours.

Background: Skin adnexal tumours (SATs) are a large and diverse group of benign and malignant neoplasms. They are uncommon. They can be single or multiple, sporadic or familial and they might be markers for syndromes associated with internal malignancies. Benign adnexal tumours are more common and malignant SATs are rare and are locally aggressive and have the potential for nodal involvement and distant metastasis with a poor clinical outcome.Therefore recognition of SATs and establishing a diagnosis of malignancy in SATs is important for therapeutic and prognostic reasons.

Aims And Objectives: SATs are rare benign and malignant neoplasms. They are not commonly encountered in the routine surgical pathology practice.Hence this study aims at finding the frequency, clinical presentation and the histopathological appearances of SATS, and the differentiating features between benign and malignant tumours.

Materials And Methods: This is partly a retrospective and partly a prospective study done in a tertiary care hospital over a period of four years .All the SATs reported during this period are analysed for their clinical features, age, sex incidence and their gross and histopathological features.

Results: In the four years period 1,64,220 patients attended the hospital. The total number of SATS reported during this period were 21 cases (0.0128 %) Benign tumours were 19 (90.48%). Malignant tumours were 2(9.52%) The mean age for males 36.9 years and for females 35. Two years. There were 11 male patients and 10 female patients. Tumours of hair follicular differentiation were 7 (33.33%). Tumour like lesion of sebaceous origin was 1 (4.76%). Tumours of sweat gland origin were 11 (52.38%). Malignant tumours of eccrine origin were 2 (9.52%).

Conclusion: SATs are not common. Their incidence in our study is only 0.0128 % of all cases. Eventhough benign SATs are more common than the malignant tumours, malignant SATs can occur both in young and elderly patients and they are aggressive and the SATs should be excised with wide tumour free margins.