ABSTRACT

To clinically and histopathologically examine eyelid lesions and evaluate the consistency of clinical examination by comparing the provisional diagnoses of patients with their postoperative histopathology results.

In this study, the records of 408 patients who applied to Trakya University, Department of Ophthalmology with an eyelid mass and underwent surgery between January 2000 to November 2019 were retrospectively analyzed. Patients’ data comprised age, gender, location of the mass, lesion distribution according to age and gender, provisional clinical diagnosis of the patients, and histopathological reports.

Out of 408 patients, 220 (54%) were female, and 188 (46%) were male. The mean age of the patients was 46.9 ± 20.17 years (range; 5-90 years). In the histopathological examination of the lesions, 318 (77.9%) of them were benign, and 90 (22.1%) of them were malignant. The most common benign lesion was chalazion [112 (35.2%)], while the most common malignant lesion was basal cell carcinoma [71 (78.9%)]. The clinical pre-diagnosis and histopathological diagnosis were found to be compatible in 81 (90%) patients with a malignant lesion. There was a statistically significant difference in age between malignant and benign lesions, where malignant lesions were found more in older patients. The histopathological examination ended up being malignant in 2.2% of the lesions with a benign provisional diagnosis.

In conclusion, even though most common eyelid lesions in our study were found to be benign, some lesions diagnosed as benign in clinic were found to be malignant after histopathological examination. Hence all excisions should be evaluated histopathologically to achieve a better clinical outcome in all patients with an eyelid lesion.

Keywords: Eyelid, lesion, basal cell carcinoma, chalazion