Peri-ocular proliferative apocrine hidrocystoma (cystadenoma): A clinicopathological case series

Apocrine cystadenomas are rare, benign tumors that might arise in the periocular region from glands of Moll. They characteristically demonstrate proliferative features on histopathological examination, which differentiate them from simple hidrocystomas.

We retrospectively identified 4 consecutive cases of apocrine cystadenomas in male patients with a mean age of 48.5 years (range 20-62). One of the cases was a recurrent lesion. The Preoperative clinical diagnosis was mostly hidrocystoma. All patients agreed on complete surgical excision of their cystic lesions. Histopathological review of the excised cysts confirmed the diagnosis of apocrine cystadenoma based on the presence of proliferative features with no atypia or infiltrative behavior. Cases are summarized in Table 1 and the histopathological appearance is demonstrated in the included figure.

Apocrine cystadenoma is rare. It occurs in the areas of skin with hair follicles, such as the axilla, neck, and trunk, and may be mistaken for other skin lesions, such as nevi or syringomas. In the eyelid region, they are commonly missed and frequently diagnosed as simple hidrocystoma due to the presence of bluish hue such as in our series. Recurrence is rare but was found in one of our patients at initial presentation. Our series included unique locations of this lesion in the medial canthus in one patient and near the eyelid tarsus in another.

Ophthalmologist should be aware of the rare occurrence of this lesion in the periocular region. Further studies to explain the etiology of such proliferative nature in apocrine cysts would be interesting.