Chondroid syringoma: a diagnosis more frequent than expected

Abstract

Background: Chondroid syringoma or mixed tumor of the skin is a rare subcutaneous tumor that may be confused with various skin lesions.

Objective: To elucidate the incidence of condroid syringomas among skin lesions that were excised under local anesthesia.

Methods: The histopathologic diagnosis of 16,200 skin lesions that had been operated between 1986 and 2002 were retrospectively evaluated. The cases with condroid syringoma were histopathologically re-examined, and confirmed cases were further analyzed for preoperative diagnosis, age, gender, and lesion location.

Results: Sixteen patients were found to have histopathologic diagnosis of chondroid syringoma constituting 0.098% of the excised skin lesions in this series. All of these 16 cases were misdiagnosed preoperatively. The typical presentation was a solitary skin lesion located in the head and neck region in a middle-aged male patient.

Conclusion: In the evaluation of a middle-aged male patient with a small subcutaneous nodule in the head and neck region, chondroid syringoma should be also taken into consideration for differential diagnosis. For such a lesion, excisional biopsy without destroying aesthetic and functional structures is the preferred diagnostic approach.