Brit. 7. Ophthal. (I973) 57, 836 Basal cell carcinoma of the conjunctiva

The purpose of this communication is to report a rare pathological finding in a lesion which appeared clinically to be an entirely innocent conjunctival papilloma. Case report An 82-year-old man attended on June 14, I972, with a pedunculated lesion of the conjunctiva approximately 4 mm. in diameter. It was situated nasally in the palpebral aperture between the limbus and the plica. He gave a vague history of its duration, although in recent months he had noticed that it had increased in size. The lesion was fleshy and mobile and had no vascular core. It was excised under a local anaesthetic the same morning, and when the patient was seen 2 months later there was no sign of recurrence. The following October, however, the patient was found in a different department to be suffering from myelomatosis; he died shortly afterwards without further ophthalmic examination. OCULAR PATHOLOGY Histologically this was a basal cell carcinoma. The lesion was composed of tumour cells surrounding islands of connective tissue (Fig. i). FIG. I Section of tumour, showing interlacing strands of basal cells surrounding islands of connective tissue Haematoxylin and eosin. x IOO The basal cells of the epithelium of the conjunctiva were continuous with the palisaded cells surrounding the tumour tissue (Fig. 2). Elsewhere there were sheets of tumour cells showing a whorled pattern, suggesting early squamoid differentiation