Survey of 138 Conjunctival Tumors in the Dominican Republic

ABSTRACT

Purpose

To report the frequency of conjunctival tumors in the Dominican Republic.

Methods

Retrospective noninterventional case series. One hundred thirty-eight consecutive patients with a conjunctival mass evaluated at two tertiary referral centers from 2010 to 2018. Main outcome measures were frequency of tumors by diagnosis and distribution of tumors relative to patients’ age and gender.

Results

The mean age at presentation was 41.2 years (median, 42 years; range 10 days – 91 years). There were 83 male patients (60%) and 55 female patients (40%). The three most common specific diagnoses were junctional, compound, and subepithelial naevi (47 [34%]), squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) (26 [19%]) and conjunctival squamous intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) (17 [12%]). The mean age at detection was 36.5 years for non-malignant tumors and 56.3 years for malignant tumors (p < .001), with a mean difference of 19.8 years at time of diagnosis (95% CI, 10.7–28.8). Benign tumors were more common in children and young adults; malignant and premalignant tumors were more common in mid and older adults (p = .009). Malignant tumors were more common in males (73%) than in females (27%) (p = .04).

Conclusion

In the Dominican Republic, conjunctival tumors are benign (63%), premalignant (13%) and malignant (24%). Malignant tumors are more common in older adults and men.

KEYWORDS:

• Conjunctiva
• tumors
• squamous cell carcinoma
• Dominican Republic
• Caribbean

Disclosure Statement

None of the following authors have any proprietary interests or conflicts of interest related to this submission: None of the authors.

Proprietary interests or conflicts of interest

None of the following authors have any proprietary interests or conflicts of interest related to this submission: None of the authors.

This work is original, has not been published and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. All authors agree with the submission.

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at DOI: doi:10.17632/43bdssgc87.1.

Statement of Ethics

Research adhered to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki. The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE). Institutional Ethics approval was obtained from Centro Cardio-Neuro-Oftalmológico y Transplante (CECANOT), Instituto Contra la Ceguera por Glaucoma (INCOCEGLA) and Laboratorio de Patología Ocular Dr. Gerson Vizcaíno López.