SWEAT GLAND TUMORS OF THE VULVA, BENIGN (HIDRADENOMA) AND MALIGNANT (ADENOCARCINOMA)

Abstract The sweat gland tumors of the vulva constitute a relatively rare but highly interesting group. Clinically they present as small and innocent-looking growths on or near the vulva, but to one not familiar with their histological appearance the micrscopic picture is apt to be rather startling, and perhaps to lead to the diagnosis of adenocarcinoma. However, in only one case in the literature, that of Elchenberg, has there been apparently unimpeachable evidence of malignant change, both clinical and microscopic. All other cases, including the fifteen cases reported herewith, have been clinically benign and all have been cured by simple excision. Granted that the characteristic microscopic picture of these growths might well in other tissues lead to the diagnosis of adenocarcinoma, there would seem to be no justification for applying the term adenocarcinoma to these notoriously benign sweat gland tumors. It is entirely possible, and perhaps even probable, that some instances of the rare primary adenocarcinoma of the vulva may be of sweat gland origin, as in the two cases of this group we have included in this paper. Such an origin, however, is difficult to establish. The histogenesis of these sweat gland tumors has been thoroughly discussed in our paper, and the suggestion made that the apocrine gland derivation of these growths has probably been overaccentuated, though our knowledge on this point is still very incomplete. The clinical and microscopic characteristics of hidradenoma have likewise been rather fully discussed in the paper.