A Clinico-epidemiological study of painful skin tumors in the West of Iran over eight years (2012-20)

Abstract

Background Painful Skin Tumors (PSTs) are uncommon .They induce pain with variable severity and their definitive diagnosis requires para-clinical assessment. This study was done to explore some clinico-epidemiological characteristics of PSTs.   Methods This descriptive analytic study was done on patients clinically suspected of PSTs, which was confirmed by para-clinical assessment. Demographic data of the patients and clinical characteristics of PSTs were recorded. Data analysis was done by appropriate statistical tests.   Results A total of 95 patients (54 females and 41 males), with mean age of 33.88±10.56 years, disease history of 15.26±11.33 months, and tumor size of 4.37±3.75 mm were recruited in this study. Our study showed angiolipoma (31.6%) as the most common PSTs. PSTs were also more common as a solitary lesion (91.6%), without familial history (93.7%) in upper limbs (46.3%) with moderate and severe pain (80%). There was a significant relationship between multiple tumors and severity of the pain, location of the tumor, type of lesion, and positive family history (p <0.05).   Conclusion Although our study showed the majority of neuroma and glomus tumors had severe pain, there was no statistically significant relationship between them. However, familial, multiple, and generalized dermatofibroma had significantly mild pain.   Key words Painful skin tumor, angiolipom, glomus tumor, dermatofibroma.