title: A prospective, multicentre study of malignant and premalignant lesions at the base of periocular cutaneous horns.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The primary objective of the study was to determine the incidence of the various pathological conditions present at the base of the periocular cutaneous horns. The secondary objective was to study the presentation of these cutaneous horns with a view to finding any clinical indicators for premalignant, malignant and benign lesions at the base.
  
  
  METHODS
  Prospective multicentre study of patients presenting with cutaneous horns. Informed consent followed by excision biopsy of the base lesion was performed in all the cases included for the study. The biopsy specimens were examined histologically and results analysed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Twenty-six patients presented with cutaneous horns in the periocular region over a period of 2 years, of these two patients presented with more than one cutaneous horn. 23 patients underwent excision biopsy. There were a total of 25 specimens. Of the base lesions 2/25 (8%) were malignant, 7/25 (28%) were pre-malignant and the remaining 16/25 (64%) were benign. Analysis of the findings on clinical presentation revealed no clinical indicators to correlate with the final histology.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The incidence of malignant and pre-malignant lesions present at the base of periocular cutaneous horns was 36% with 8% of them being malignant. It is important to perform an excision biopsy with histological diagnosis of the base of the cutaneous horn as there are no definite clinical features that point towards a potential for malignancy.
authors.affiliation: University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, Leicester, UK.
authors.forename: Katya
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tambe
authors.forename: Tristan T Q
authors.initials: TT
authors.lastname: Reuser
authors.forename: Raghavan G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Sampath
authors.forename: Joyce
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Burns
authors.forename: Harpreet
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ahluwalia
authors.forename: Jeremy D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Bowyer
authors.forename: Bimal
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.forename: Soupramanien
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sandramouli
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001706:Biopsy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007642:Keratosis / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009918:Orbital Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology*; D011230:Precancerous Conditions / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology*; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology