Clinicopathological Spectrum of Benign Skin Adnexal Tumors in the Pakistani Population: A Single-Center Study

Background Skin adnexal tumors (SATs) are categorized per the site of origin, for example, hair follicles, sebaceous glands, and sweat glands. In our population, there is limited information related to the clinicopathological characteristics of these tumors. Management and prognosis depend largely upon the morphological type of the tumor. In this study, we assessed the disease spectrum and most prevalent subtypes of benign SATs. Methodology An analysis of 565 cases was conducted in this cross-sectional study between January 2018 and December 2022, using a non-probability consecutive sampling approach. Patient age, gender, site of involvement, and diagnosis were documented according to the fourth edition of the WHO Classification of Skin Tumors published in 2018. Data were entered and analyzed using SPSS Version 26.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY). Results Our study had 565 patients, out of which 271 (47.9%) were males and 294 (52.1%) were females. The mean age was 40.97±19.3 years (range, 2-100 years). Anatomical site variations were as follows, head and neck (n=336, 59.4%), extremities (n=124, 22%), trunk (n=84, 14.9%), and genital areas (n=21, 3.7%). The most common histological subtypes of benign SATs were sweat gland origin (n=350, 62.0%), followed by hair follicle origin (n=161, 28.5 %), and sebaceous gland origin (n=54, 9.5%). Conclusion Sweat gland tumors were the most prevalent class of benign SATs in our study, in which hidradenoma and poroma were the most frequent subtypes. Hair follicle origin was the second most prevalent class of tumors with pilomatricoma being the most frequent. Sebaceous tumors were overall uncommon; nevus sebaceous of Jadasshon was the most common tumor in this class.