The Epidemiology of Non-Melanocytic Benign and Malignant Skin Tumors in Pediatric Patients Attending to the Dermatology Department

BACKGROUND: Non-melanocytic skin tumors are rarely seen in pediatric patients; although they are mostly benign, they remain to be elucidated by histopathological examination. The objective of the study was to describe the epidemiology of non-melanocytic skin tumors in children attending to our dermatology department. METHOD: The histopathologic studies of all skin punch and excisional biopsies of children up to 16 years old referred to our dermatology department between January 2007 and January 2012 were reviewed retrospectively. Melanocytic tumors and cystic and infectious lesions were excluded. Age, sex, location, and histopathologic diagnosis were recorded. The skin tumors were categorized. RESULTS: A total of 4,126 skin tumors were analyzed histopathologically, and 203 of the lesions were from children up to 16 years of age. Ninety-seven of the lesions from 91 patients were non-melanocytic skin tumors. Forty-seven (51.64%) were male, 44 (48.36%) were female, and mean age was 10.55 ± 4.31 years. Malignant tumor was 1.03% (one tumor) and benign tumors were 98.97% (96 tumors) of all. The most frequent non-melanocytic skin tumor was pilomatricoma with 22 lesions (22.68%), followed by pyogenic granuloma with 18 lesions (18.54%), and nevus sebaceous with 10 (10.3%) lesions. Cutaneous leukemic infiltrate was found to be the only malignant skin tumor in the study group. The most frequently affected age group was children aged > 13 to ≤ 16 years, which included 38 patients (41.7%). The majority of lesions were on head and scalp (32 tumors, 32.96%), followed by trunk (28 tumors, 28.84%) and upper limbs (22 tumors, 22.75%). CONCLUSION: The ratio of malignant to benign skin tumors in pediatric patients is found to be small. Pilomatricoma, pyogenic granuloma and nevus sebaceous are found to be the most frequent non-melanocytic skin tumors of children. The ratio of malignant tumors is very rare.