Preaurikular pilomatriksoma.

Objective: The pilomatrixoma is a relatively rare skin neoplasm. It is a benign disease, originating from hair follicle matrix cells and, it represents 0,12% of all skin tumors. It is mostly located in head and neck particularly in the preauricular region. Clinically it presents as a slow growing, well-circumscribed subcutaneous or intracutaneous mass with hard consistency. Although the diagnosis of pilomatrixoma can be made on the basis of clinical features, the definitive diagnosis is made on histopathological examination. This tumor may be misdiagnosed and unnecessarily treated by aggressive resection by the physicians. Case Report: A 6-year old female presented with a preauricular subcutaneous mass and she underwent excision of the mass. Histopathological examination of the excised mass revealed pilomatrixoma. The postoperative period was uneventful and there were no signs of recurrence with one year of follow-up. Conclusion: In the presented paper, the features of pilomatrixoma were discussed in the light of the recent literature. Physicians should consider pilomatrixoma in the differential diagnosis of the superficial preauricular masses to avoid unnecessary wide excisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]