Congenital Pilonidal Sinus of the Nose

Abstract

I must dispute the claim by Schache et al. that the case of congenital pilonidal sinus of the nose which they reported is unique in the English literature.' It would indeed be surprising to find that a lesion in the middle of the face has not been reported previously.A thoroughly incomplete survey of the literature in my office, produced seven case reports of similar lesions. In 1951 Littlewood described six cases with references to previous descriptions (in the English literature) by Bland-Sutton (1983), Brunner and Harned (1942), Champion and Prendiville (1952), Crawford and Webster (1952). Holmes (1942), Luango (1933) and New and Erich (1937).' Matson devotes a chapter in his textbook to this condition under the title of 'Congenital dermal sinus tract', citing one personal case.3It would seem that the search of the literature was incomplete in this instance and it may be that this was because the alternative key words were not used. In the articles quoted, the words used are

Pilonidal sinus of the nose

“…We report a case of pilonidal sinus of the nose for the rare localization of this kind of lesion which is mainly found in the sacrococcygeal region. Other anatomical areas like axilla, umbilicus, interdigital space and anterior perineal region have been less frequently reported, and only few cases of this disease occurring on the nose have been previously described in the literature 1–3 …”