Epidemiologic Differences and Management of Eyelid Lesions in the Pediatric Population.

Purpose: To report the relative incidence of excised pediatric eyelid lesions and describe the correlation between the clinical and pathology diagnosis.

Methods: This was a retrospective analysis of 137 consecutive pathology-confirmed eyelid lesions excised at a U.S. quaternary children's hospital system. Chalazion was excluded from this study.

Results: Benign non-cystic epithelial lesions comprised 48.2% of all excised lesions, followed by mesenchymal (14.6%) and cystic (10.2%) lesions. The most common lesions were molluscum contagiosum (21.9%) and verruca vulgaris (19.0%). Hispanic White race represented 62.0% of cases, followed by non-Hispanic White (23.3%) and Black (8.8%). There were no malignant lesions. A specific preoperative clinical diagnosis was attempted in 70.1% of cases. Of these, 60.4% had a matching histopathology.

Conclusions: The authors report a higher proportion of molluscum contagiosum and verruca vulgaris when compared to the literature; these differences may suggest geographic variance, management preference, or a general increase in incidence. Correlation with pathology showed the clinical diagnosis of eyelid lesions can be challenging even for ophthalmologists. However, malignancy in pediatric eyelid lesions is rare and submission for histopathology may be safely omitted, except in cases with atypical features or suspicion for syndromic disease. The decision for surgery should be methodically approached and take into consideration the most likely diagnosis, natural history of the disease, sociopsychological impact, anesthesia risk, and resource burden. .