Eyelid tumors: clinical data from an eye center in Ankara, Turkey.

INTRODUCTION: The aim of the study was to explore the distribution of eyelid tumors in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey, from a histopathological point of view.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Medical records of 1,502 patients who had eyelid surgery because of tumoral lesions were retrospectively reviewed after obtaining institutional review board approval. A total of 1,541 lesions with histopathologic diagnosis were included. Inflammatory tumoral lesions were excluded. The lesions were categorized into three groups according to the origin: epidermal, adnexal tumors and 'others', including melanocytic, neural and vascular lesions.

RESULTS: Of the total of 1,541, 908 lesions were epidermal in origin. Only 22 (1.5%) were malignant, and 6.0% was premalignant lesions such as actinic keratosis and Bowen's disease. Twenty-one of 22 malignant lesions were basal cell carcinoma. There was only one patient with squamous cell carcinoma and no sebaceous cell carcinoma. Among the benign tumors (92.5%), squamous papilloma was the most frequent (21.8% of all lesions). The other frequent lesions were nevus (17.6%), seborrheic keratosis (17.3%), hydrocystomas (10.6%), xanthelasma (7.6%) and epidermal cysts (7.2%).

CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study are in accordance with published literature. The absence of sebaceous cell carcinomas needs to be stressed.