Canaliculops

Abstract

Over a 1-year period, a cystic bluish coloration developed in the most medial aspect at the margin of the right upper eyelid of a 40-year-old man. The clinical diagnoses were either a conjunctival inclusion cyst or an adnexal cyst, possibly of the gland of Moll. The excised specimen was studied histopathologically and exhibited a lining that was virtually indistinguishable from that of the normal canaliculus, except for hyperplasia of the cellular wall and the focal presence of a superficial mucin-producing columnar cell monolayer at the lumen. The medial edge of the excised specimen showed a merging of the cyst into a nonectatic portion of the canaliculus. Inflammation in the wall of the cyst and in this terminal portion of the canaliculus was not identified. This is believed to be a unique entity of an idiopathic ectasia with mild epithelial proliferation of a segment of the canaliculus. The authors have termed this condition canaliculops, to draw a parallel between it and ectasia of the ducts of the lacrimal gland, so-called dacryops.