[Frequency of benign tumors at the Hospital General "Dr. Manuel Gea Gonzalez". Record review between 2000-2006].
BACKGROUND
Benign skin neoplasms are defined as autonomous growing tissue unrelated to normal growing of the skin, that persist even after the originating stimulus dissapears. Almost all human beings have a certain number of benign cutaneous neoplasms and many never seek medical attention. There is a dearth of information regarding the frequency of these tumors. The aim of this study was to record the number of benign tumors studied at the Dermatology Department of a medical facility.


METHODS
A retrospective study analyzed medical records between 2000 and 2006. We included year of admission, number of biopsies, sex, age, tumor location, histological and clinical diagnoses.


RESULTS
We analyzed 9,436 biopsies of which 3,765 constituted benign neoplasms; 595 were not included and our total sample was 3,170 tumors. The most frequent tumors according to histopathological diagnoses in descending order were: melanocytic, cutaneous cysts, fibrous tumors, vascular tumors, epidermal tumors, fat tumors, tumors with hair differentiation, neural tumors, glandular tumors, tumors with sebaceous differentiation, cartilage and bone tumors, and smooth muscle tumors. The most common benign tumors were: Melanocytic nevi, epidermal cysts, seborrheic keratoses, pyogenic granulomas, lipomas and dermatofibromas.


CONCLUSIONS
Melanocytes represented by melanocytic nevi (junctional, intradermic and compound) were the most frequent benign neoplasms, followed by epidermoid cysts. Our results illustrate the most common benign tumors observed in a dermatology department.
Káram-Orantes
Marcia
M
Departamento de Dermatología, Hospital General Dr. Manuel Gea González, Deleg. Tlalpan, México DF, México. magica_karam@yahoo.com
Fonte-Avalos
Verónica
V
Zuloaga-Salcedo
Soraya
S
Domínguez-Cherit
Judith
J
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006769:Hospitals, General; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000473:pathology; D012189:Retrospective Studies