- •
Dermoscopy is not only valuable for the skin but can also be used for the diagnosis of conjunctival lesions.
- •
The anatomy of the conjunctiva is different from the skin; therefore, dermoscopic features of conjunctival tumors are different from the respective tumors of the skin.
- •
Conjunctival melanoma is characterized by irregularly distributed dots and a higher prevalence of gray color compared with nevi.
- •
Squamous cell carcinoma of the conjunctiva is characterized by hairpin and glomerular vessels.
Dermoscopy for the Diagnosis of Conjunctival Lesions
Section snippets
Key points
Patients and Setting
One hundred and twenty-seven consecutive patients (60 women, 67 men, mean age 47 years, standard deviation [SD] 22.1, range 7–94 years) presenting with 147 conjunctival lesions were recruited at the Dermatology Department of the University Hospital of Saint-Etienne, France, between September 1, 2013 and January 30, 2017 to exclude the presence of malignant tumors. Eyelid margin tumors were excluded. An institutional review board approval was obtained (institutional review board at the
Clinical Features
Clinical data are reported in Table 1. A slight male predominance was observed (52%). Patients with malignant lesions (MMs plus SCCs) were significantly older than patients with benign lesions (mean 67, SD 15.8; range 43–94 years vs mean 42; SD 21, range 7–94 years; t value = 3.3988, P = .0193). With regard to the anatomic site, most lesions were located on the bulbar conjunctiva (59%). Interestingly, SCCs were located at the limbus with an extension to the bulbar conjunctiva in all cases
Discussion
To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study concerning the dermoscopic features of a series of conjunctival lesions. In the literature, there are no data on dermoscopic features of inflammatory conjunctival lesions and only 4 case reports about tumors that described a sebaceous carcinoma of the tarsal conjunctiva with polymorphous vessels and brilliant yellow background13 and 3 MMs. The first MM involved the tarsal conjunctiva and showed atypical pigment network, irregular dots and
References (18)
- et al.
Tumors of the conjunctiva and cornea
Surv Ophthalmol
(2004) - et al.
Benign conjunctival tumors
J Fr Ophtalmol
(2013) - et al.
The role of in vivo confocal microscopy in the diagnosis of eyelid margin tumors: 47 cases
J Am Acad Dermatol
(2014) - et al.
Handheld reflectance confocal microscopy for the diagnosis of conjunctival tumors
Am J Ophthalmol
(2015) - et al.
Confocal microscopy for special sites and special uses
Dermatol Clin
(2016) - et al.
Palpebral conjunctiva melanoma with dermoscopic and clinicopathological characteristics
J Am Acad Dermatol
(2014) - et al.
Clinical survey of 1643 melanocytic and nonmelanocytic conjunctival tumors
Ophthalmology
(2004) - et al.
Conjunctival tumors in 5002 cases. comparative analysis of benign versus malignant counterparts. The 2016 James D. Allen Lecture
Am J Ophthalmol
(2017) - et al.
Handheld In vivo reflectance confocal microscopy for the diagnosis of eyelid margin and conjunctival tumors
JAMA Ophthalmol
(2017)
Cited by (0)
Disclosures: None.