Eyelid tumours and pseudotumours in Hong Kong: a ten-year experience

To describe the clinicopathological characteristics of patients with eyelid tumours in Hong Kong.

Retrospective case series.

A tertiary eye centre in Hong Kong.

A computerised retrieval system was used to identify all patients who underwent eyelid mass excisions with histological reports, encountered in the period 2000 to 2009, in a tertiary eye centre. The demographics (age, gender), clinical features (laterality, tumour topography), and the pathological diagnosis of each patient were documented. Descriptive statistical tabulation and analyses were performed on the data.

In all, 198 patients were identified; all were Chinese. Their mean age was 54 years for benign lesions and 68 years for malignant ones. Women were more commonly affected. Benign tumourous lesions occurred more commonly on the upper (n=91; 54%) than lower eyelid (n=79; 47%), whereas malignant lesions more often affected the lower (n=17, 61%) than upper (n=11, 39%) eyelid. The distribution of left and right eye involvement was similar (103 vs 101, respectively). In six patients, there were bilateral benign lesion. Regarding benign masses, 45 (27%) were intradermal neavi, 38 (22%) were squamous papillomas, 25 (15%) were seborrhoeic keratosis lesions, 14 (8%) were epidermoid cysts, and 7 (4%) were compound naevi. Regarding malignant eyelid tumours, the most common was basal cell carcinomas (n=12, 43%), 5 (18%) were squamous cell carcinomas, 3 (11%) were actinic keratosis lesions, and 2 (7%) each were sebaceous gland carcinomas and melanomas.

Benign lesions constituted the majority of these eyelid tumours. Among the malignant lesions, basal cell carcinoma was the commonest type, with lower lid involvement in majority. Sebaceous gland carcinoma is not rare, which is in contrast to Caucasian populations. The relative frequencies of the most common malignant tumours in Hong Kong differed substantially from those reported in other Asian studies.