Squamous cell carcinoma of the eyelids.

A clinicopathologic study of 31 squamous cell carcinomas of the eyelid was conducted. The tumor was encountered less frequently than in previous reports, due largely to the refinement of the pathologic diagnosis. Eighteen cases originally diagnosed as squamous cell carcinoma were eliminated because the diagnoses were changed to sebaceous gland carcinoma (10), basal cell carcinoma (4), seborrheic keratosis (2), inverted follicular keratosis (1), and papilloma (1). One of our 31 patients experienced tumor metastasis and tumor-related mortality. Despite the low incidence of metastasis, management recommendations include complete surgical excision using intra-operative frozen-section monitoring of the surgical margins.