Clinical and Histopathological Analysis of Conjunctival Tumours at a Tertiary Care Centre in Indian Population

Abstract

The broad spectrum of conjunctival tumors ranges from non-neoplastic benign tumors to very aggressive malignancies, such as melanoma or Kaposi's sarcoma which threat visual function and life of the patient. There is a relative paucity of large published studies documenting conjunctival lesions. In the Indian population, reported 46% of epithelial origin (benign, premalignant, and malignant neoplasm), degenerative lesions (14%), chronic non-specific inflammation (12%), melanocytic tumors (12%), lymphoid tumors (6%). Squamous cell carcinoma (20%), miscellaneous (22%), pterygium (10%), squamous papilloma (8%), and OSSN (8%). A review of a large series of conjunctival biopsy specimens from an adult US population documented the following distribution: inflammatory/degenerative lesions (12%), benign epithelial (2%), pigmented (53%), premalignant and malignant epithelial (11%), lymphoid (8%), miscellaneous (12%) and congenital lesions (2%). AIM: To study the clinical and histopathological features of conjunctival tumors at a tertiary care hospital in south Indian population. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In our study, 134 patients with conjunctival tumors followed between January 2009 and September 2010 were retrospectively reviewed. Clinical data were collected from medical records and analyzed. Of the 134 patients with conjunctival tumor, 80 were male (59.70%) and 54 were female (40.29%). The mean age of the134 patients was 35 years (range1to 95 years). In our series, the most common diagnosis of 134 lesions were, nevus 18.66% (n=25), carcinoma in situ 10.44% (n=14), dysplasia 5.97%(n=8), squamous cell carcinoma(SCC) 5.22% (n=7), haemangioma 3.73% (n=5), squamous papilloma 3.73%(n=5), limbal dermoid 2.98%(n=4), malignant melanoma 1.49% (n=2) and lymphoma 0.74 %(n=1). CONCLUSION: Nevus was found to be the most common conjunctival benign tumor. Even though squamous cell carcinoma is a rare conjunctival malignant tumor, it may be encountered in younger male population.