A case of folliculosebaceous cystic hamartoma: a rare and clinically indistinct lesion

Abstract

We report a case of a slowly growing papule on the nasal bridge of an elderly woman. Histopathological findings revealed a very unusual type of folliculosebaceous cystic hamartoma with a retiform and primitive epithelial proliferation associated with the stromal component. Folliculosebaceous cystic hamartoma is an uncommon lesion that involves a cystically dilated follicle embedded in a stroma of distinct mesenchymal tissue. Because folliculosebaceous cystic hamartoma is a rare and clinically indistinct lesion, clinical photographs of the lesion are not widely available. A recent search on PubMed revealed less than 50 published articles on folliculosebaceous cystic hamartoma; among these manuscripts there was a scarcity of clinical images of the lesion. This disparity is to be expected as the lesion typically has a very indistinct presentation. We thus describe an inconspicuously appearing case of folliculosebaceous cystic hamartoma to bring attention to the indistinct clinical morphology of the lesion and to report a histopathologically uncommon variant.