Clinical and Pathological Classification of Eyelid and Conjunctival Tumors: a Retrospective Analysis of Korean Patients

ABSTRACT

Purpose@#To investigate the clinical and pathological classification of eyelid and conjunctival tumors in Korean patients. @*Methods@#We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 284 patients with eyelid skin tumors and 158 with conjunctival tumors between January 2011 and June 2020. Demographic, clinical, and histopathological data were analyzed. @*Results@#In total, 260 (91.5%) and 24 (8.5%) patients had benign and premalignant/malignant eyelid tumors, respectively. The mean age was 54.7 ± 20.1 and 72.0 ± 13.5 years, respectively and the most common benign and malignant tumors were intradermal nevus (21.5%) and basal cell carcinoma (4.2%), respectively. The second most common malignant tumor was sebaceous gland carcinoma (1.4%). The conjunctival tumors included 133 (84.2%) benign tumors and 25 (15.8%) premalignant/malignant tumors, in patients with an average age of 47.9 ± 22.2 and 60.7 ± 18.3 years, respectively. The most common benign and malignant conjunctival tumors were subepithelial nevus (13.3%) and lymphoma (10.1%), respectively. The patients with premalignant/ malignant eyelid tumors were significantly older than those with premalignant/malignant conjunctival tumors (p = 0.01). @*Conclusions@#The incidence of sebaceous gland carcinoma was higher in our study than in Western ones, which showed similar results to other East Asian studies. The most common conjunctival malignant tumor was lymphoma in our study and malignant melanoma in Western studies. It is necessary to consider the possibility of lymphoma when the tumor is in the palpebral conjunctiva, where mucosal lymphoid tissue is abundant. This study provides useful data on the incidence and characteristics of eyelid and conjunctival tumors in Korean patients. Further investigations in larger patient populations are required to better understand the epidemiology of eyelid and conjunctival tumors.