Background: Skin adnexal tumors are large and diverse group of uncommon neoplasms usually misdiagnosed clinically due to their large variety and variants. Histopathology usually helps in establishing the diagnosis. Aims: To study the spectrum and morphological features of skin adnexal tumors (SATs) at our centre. Methods: This is both retrospective and prospective descriptive study over a period of 5 years (June 2005 to June 2010). The study included all the biopsies and excision specimens submitted for histopathological examination. Results: Most of the SATs were benign (25/31) with head and neck being the most common location (67.74%). Male to female ratio was 1:1.8. There was equal occurrence of tumors of sweat gland and hair follicle differentiation (45%). The most common varieties of tumors encountered in the present study included proliferating trichilemmal tumor and hidradenoma. The concordance between clinical and histopathological diagnosis was found to be 6.45% approximately. Conclusions: SATs are relatively uncommon. As they are often clinically misdiagnosed, histopathology is mandatory for the diagnosis. Although they are not numerically important or therapeutically problematic, nevertheless they form the spectrum of interesting lesions.

Keywords: Adnexal tumor; Proliferating trichilemmal tumor; Hidradenoma; Pilomatricoma.