Solitary trichoepithelioma in an 8-year-old child: clinical, dermoscopic and histopathologic findings

Abstract

Solitary trichoepithelioma (TE) is a rare, benign tumor of follicular origin that in certain cases is difficult to differentiate from basal cell carcinoma (BCC). We report the case of an 8-year-old girl with a pale pink, soft lesion on the neck. The clinical image of the lesion was equivocal, while some dermoscopic findings—blue-gray globules and arborizing vessels—could not exclude the presence of BCC from the differential diagnosis, although that would have been a very unlikely case considering the age of the patient. The histopathologic examination established the diagnosis of TE. Given the occasion of this challenging case we try to list the key clinical, dermoscopic and histopathological characteristics of TE and BCC in order to elucidate the differential diagnosis of these two entities.

Keywords

• trichoepithelioma
• basal cell carcinoma
• diagnosis
• dermoscopy
• histopathology