Pilomatrixoma in the head and neck.

Malherbe and Chenantais were the first to report a pilomatrixoma in 1880. They described a calcifying epithelioma, believing it to be a sebaceous gland tumor. Since 1905, this uncommon neoplasia has been called Malherbe’s calcifying epithelioma. Numerous studies suggest that this tumor stems from the external sheath of hair follicles. In 1961, Forbis and Helwig proposed the term pilomatrixoma, which is more etymologically correct. It is a benign skin neoplasia, originating from hair follicle matrix cells, representing 0.12% of skin tumors. In this study we present two cases of pilomatrixoma and discuss the main aspects of this neoplasia.