Carcinoma at a tracheostomy site is rare, with only six cases previously reported.1-5 All of these tumors were squamous carcinomas that had arisen in long-standing tracheostomy tracts and that involved the trachea. In contrast, we describe a patient with an adnexal carcinoma (a variant of basal cell carcinoma) that arose in a well-healed tracheostomy scar and did not involve the trachea.
Report of a Case.—A 54-year-old man was first seen at the Denver Veterans Administration Medical Center in September 1981, complaining of an enlarging mass in the scar of a prior tracheostomy. In 1954, he had undergone an emergency tracheostomy following a spontaneous subarachnoid hemorrhage. Decannulation was performed three days later, and the tract closed during the next two weeks. For the next 27 years, the patient remained neurologically asymptomatic, with a well-healed tracheostomy scar.
In August 1981, the tracheostomy scar developed a soft-tissue mass and began to