Tumours of eyelid: a clinicopathologic study.

A retrospective study of 207 cases of eyelid tumours and tumour like lesions, diagnosed histopathologically, was carried out for the period 1957 to 1991. There was a slight preponderance of males as the male/female ratio was 1.3:1. The age of the cases ranged from one to 80 years. Benign tumours were usually seen in the first two decades whereas the malignant tumours were common in the age group of 40 to 60 years. Malignancy was noticed in 85 cases (41.1%). Of these cases of malignant tumours, basal cell carcinoma was the commonest (38.8%) followed by sebaceous carcinoma (27.1%), squamous cell carcinoma (22.4%), basisquamous cell carcinoma (8.2%) and melanoma (3.5%). The ratio of basal cell carcinoma to squamous cell carcinoma was 1.74: 1. Of the 122 benign lesions common ones were vascular tumours (21.3%), neural tumours (18.0%), dermoid cysts (16.4%), squamous cell papilloma (13.1%) and naevi (12.3%).