Intra-epithelial epithelioma (Bowen's disease).

INTRA-EPITHELIAL EPITHELIOMATA may present to the ophthalmologist on the cornea, conjunctiva or eyelids, generally of elderly men. Here they form vascularized elevated plaques, that look rather gelatinous or granulomatous, and they most often arise in sites of chronic infection, as after burns or pannus. Years later they tend to break through the basement layer of the epithelium and finally yield distant metastases. To the ophthalmologist their interest and importance lies in the need for their early recognition, since in this precancerous stage they can so readily be excised with no ultimate danger to life or eye, and this deserves especial emphasis since they are generally flat and inconspicuous, and readily mimic a pterygium or localized lid infection. In presenting here one further case, arising as a great rarity from the tarsal conjunctiva, it seemed a good opportunity to trace the subsequent history of those other seven cases that have so far reached the pathological department of the Institute of Ophthalmology, and so to assess the prognosis after the varied therapeutic approaches that have been used.