Journal de cytologie et d'histologie

Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology of Eccrine Skin Adnexal Tumors

Abstract

Devanand B and Vadiraj P

Background: Mastery of cytodiagnosis of adnexal tumors is challenging by virtue of the enormous number of individual tumors and their variant forms, the complicated nomenclature and the frequency of differentiation along two or more adnexal lines in the same tumor. Aim: The present study is undertaken to assess the application of fine needle aspiration cytology in the diagnosis of eccrine skin adnexal tumors at all possible dermal and subcutaneous sites. Material and Methods: This is a retrospective study of fine needle aspiration cytology of subcutaneous swellings over a period of two years from January 2009 to December 2010 in a tertiary care center. A total of 2400 cases of dermal and subcutaneous swellings, for which fine needle aspiration cytology was done with histological follow up, were included in the study. The aspirates were provisionally diagnosed as basaloid neoplasms of skin adnexal origin. The aspirates were further grouped into benign and malignant lesions based on cell morphology and correlation between cytological and histological diagnoses was assessed. Results: Out of the 2400 cases of subcutaneous swellings, 20 cases were provisionally diagnosed as basaloid neoplasms of skin adnexal origin. They included 12 benign and 8 malignant lesions. The benign tumors were histologically diagnosed as spiradenomas(4 cases), nodular hidradenoma(4 cases), chondroid syringomas(2 cases), cylindroma(1 case) and papillary eccrine adenoma(1 case). The malignant tumors were histologically diagnosed as sweat gland adenocarcinoma(4 cases), mucinous carcinoma of sweat gland(1 case), digital papillary adenocarcinoma (2 cases) and cutatneous adenoid cystic carcinoma (1 case). Conclusions: Overall our study established that fine needle aspiration cytology is a very simple diagnostic investigation for neoplastic nodules in the skin.