A Case Report of Cholesterol Granuloma of the Nasal Root

Abstract

A 39-year-old female patient noticed a small subcutaneous nodule on her left nasal root a month ago. The tumor was 10 ×8 mm in diameter, elastically hard, and could be removed easily from underlying tissue. She had no history of trauma or operation on the nose. We suspected mixed tumor of the skin or a benign soft tissue tumor. The tumor was surgically excised. Histopathological findings revealed a granuloma lesion in the dermis with many spindle clefts, some of which were in the cytoplasm of multinucleated giant cells. We made a diagnosis of cholesterol granuloma of the skin. There were no keratin masses, epithelial elements, infiltration of neutrophils, or lymphocytes, so we ruled out postinflammatory granuloma due to a ruptured epidermal cyst. There have been several reports of cholesterol granulomas arising at various sites, but cholesterol granuloma of the skin is extremely rare. We herein report a rare case of cholesterol granuloma of the skin and review related literatures.