Non-Melanocytic Benign Tumors of the Face: A Retrospective Study

BACKGROUND: Although plastic surgeons daily encounter various facial tumors in the field, reports limited on face are scarce. In our study, we want to provide basic epidemiologic data to help clinicians to decide the proper management for their patients. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patients including age and gender, location and size of the tumor, histopathologic result, recurrence, type of anesthesia and any associated disorders who had undergone a surgical removal of their facial tumors and received the histopathologic report in the same institution between January 2009 and October 2012. RESULTS: One hundred eighty-nine patients with 203 non-melanocytic benign tumors were included. The most frequent site of tumors was the central subunit of the forehead, followed by the lateral subunit of the cheek and the auricular unit. Of 36 different histopathologic results, the epidermal cyst was most frequent, followed by lipoma, pilomatricoma and osteoma. Statistical analysis showed that males were dominant in the epidermal cyst and lipoma groups. While, females were dominant in the osteoma and pilomatricoma groups. No associations were found between lesions and other diseases. CONCLUSIONS: Our study is the at most specific and concentrated study on non-melanocytic benign tumors of the face. We expect the epidemiologic data of our study may help plastic surgeons who are confronted with so many facial lesions in the field to decide on the most proper management for their patients.