Cowden's disease--a report on the first case in Korea and literature review

Cowden's disease, or multiple hamartoma syndrome, is an uncommon condition with characteristic mucocutaneous lesions associated with abnormalities of the breast, thyroid, and gastrointestinal tract. We describe a 32-year-old man with oral mucosal papillomatosis and plantar hyperkeratosis as a definite case of Cowden's disease according to the criteria proposed by Salem and Steck. The patient also had a thyroid mass and numerous gastrointestinal polyps endoscopically. Histologically the polyps were hamartomatous or hyperplastic polyps. The oral papillary lesions were fibroepithelial polyps and the thyroid mass was a follicular adenoma. We review the literature on this entity and summarize the pertinent findings. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first documented case of Cowden's disease in a Korean.