Canaliculops: clinicopathologic features and treatment with marsupialization

To report the features of the rare and under-recognized condition of canaliculops (or canaliculocele) of the eyelid, which is a dilation of the canaliculus, and to evaluate treatment with marsupialization.

Retrospective interventional case series.

The records of 2 patients with canaliculops from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary were reviewed. Data collected included clinical history, surgical technique, histopathologic analysis, and comparative immunohistochemical analysis of a range of cytokeratins in normal conjunctival epithelium, normal canalicular epithelium, and canaliculops epithelium.

Two women, 53 and 66 years of age, experienced chronic, noninflammatory, painless medial eyelid and eyelid margin fluctuant swelling after earlier trauma or eyelid surgery. The external mass was accompanied by a whitish opalescent or bluish discoloration of a palpebral surface bulge. Biopsy revealed multilaminar (up to 12 cells thick), nonkeratinizing, tightly packed small squamous epithelial cells that surmounted a highly regimented basal layer with a picket fence arrangement. No goblet cells or subepithelial inflammation were present. Immunohistochemistry revealed only superficial CK7 immunostaining and positive patchy suprabasilar CK17 staining in the canaliculops epithelium, contrasting with their full-thickness positivity and negativity, respectively, in normal conjunctival epithelium. Marsupialization achieved resolution of the condition in each patient.

An improved awareness of the normal canalicular epithelial structure and its immunohistochemical features can definitively separate canaliculops from conjunctival cysts. Previous treatment of canaliculops has involved complete excisions. Canaliculops may, however, be effectively treated with less invasive marsupialization while obtaining an adequate biopsy specimen for histopathologic diagnosis.