title: Three years of retrospective evaluation of skin biopsy results in childhood.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  In our study, we aimed to evaluate retrospectively histopathological diagnoses of children based on their skin biopsies, and determine the prevalence of the disease in question.
  
  
  METHODS
  Among patients who applied to Medeniyet University Goztepe Training and Research Hospital between January 2011 and February 2014, we retrospectively evaluated demographic data and histopathological diagnoses of patients aged between 0-17 years whose skin punch biopsy samples were obtained.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The study population (n=566) with skin biopsy results consisted of 287 (50.7%) male, and 279 (49.2%) female patients with a mean age of 10.04±4.84 years. Biopsy materials were obtained from the various age groups as follows: 0-2 years, n=31 (5.4%); 3-5 years, n=67 (11.8%) 6-11 years, n=165 (29.1%), and 12-17 years, n=303 (53.5%). Among all age groups, we took biopsies mostly from patients with noninfectious erythematous squamous (24%) and vascular (21.2%) diseases. The determined histopathological diagnoses were leukocytoclasis vasculitis (18.9%), psoriasis (7.4%), melanocytic nevus (5.4%), and contact dermatitis (5.1%) respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We determined that skin punch biopsy examinations were done most frequently during adolescence and are mostly necessary for diagnosis of erythematous squamous and vascular diseases. If clinical evidence-based prevalence studies are supported with histopathological data, more significant results can be obtained.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Istanbul Medeniyet University Goztepe Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey.
authors.forename: Seyma
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ozkanli
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Istanbul Medeniyet University Goztepe Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey.
authors.forename: Ebru
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Zemheri
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Istanbul Medeniyet University Goztepe Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey.
authors.forename: Ilkin
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Zindanci
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Istanbul Medeniyet University Goztepe Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey.
authors.forename: Burce
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kuru
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Istanbul Medeniyet University Goztepe Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey.
authors.forename: Tulay
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zenginkinet
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Istanbul Medeniyet University Goztepe Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey.
authors.forename: Ayse Serap
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Karadag
keywords: Biopsy; childhood dermatoses; epidemiology