Is histological analysis of pilonidal sinus useful? Retrospective analysis of 731 resections

The pilonidal sinus (SP) is a common pathology. The treatment is a surgical excision. Many surgeons continue to systematically send this SP in histological analysis. The objective of our retrospective study was to evaluate the interest of this systematic histological analysis. The retrospective analysis of patients undergoing surgery was performed between 1 January 2006 and 31 December 2014. The primary observation was the presence of a malignant disease on the surgical specimen. Secondary observations were the wound healing time and the rate of recurrence. Seven hundred and thirty-one patients were analyzed. There was no malignant lesion. For 323 patients, the histological analysis did not describe the resection margins. Two hundred and eighty five patients had complete resect on and 38 were incomplete. Twenty-four patients had recurrence (7%). There was no significant difference between those who had complete and incomplete resection. The healing time was 61 days. Our study raises the question about the value of systematic histological analysis of the PS specimen.