Original articleGlomus tumors in individuals with neurofibromatosis type 1
Section snippets
Subjects
All individuals who underwent excision of a glomus tumor between January 1998 and January 2013 were identified after a pathology database (CO-PATH) search. Electronic records were reviewed for each individual and the presence or absence of a diagnosis of NF1 was recorded, using National Institutes of Health Consensus Development Conference criteria.12 Sex, age at the time of glomus tumor excision, and the number and location of glomus tumors were recorded. This study was performed under an
Results
A total of 42 histopathologically confirmed glomus tumors were identified in 34 individuals during the 15-year study period. Six of 34 patients (17.7%) also carried a diagnosis of NF1, none of whom were related. Twelve glomus tumors were found in the 6 individuals with NF1, representing 28.6% of the total glomus tumors in this series. One patient with NF1 had multiple glomus tumors (n = 7); another had a histopathologic diagnosis of neurofibroma and glomus tumor within the same surgical
Discussion
The findings from this study highlight several important issues.
First, glomus tumors are rare in the general population, representing less than 2% of primary hand tumors (the true incidence of glomus tumors is unknown).6 A predilection for regions exposed to temperature extremes is reflected by their predominance on the hands. Similar to previous studies, the majority involved the fingers in both sporadic and NF1-associated cases.6, 15, 16 The exact distribution of glomus tumors on the 5 digits
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Cited by (0)
Dr Bayliss is currently conducting a study with Scioderm for epidermolysis bullosa.
Conflicts of interest: None declared.