Individuals with CCS commonly develop an increasingly large number of skin tumors, including SA and SAC, over time. Usually, these individuals are readily distinguished from sporadic SA and SAC by their family history of the disease and the presence of large numbers of tumors. The rare cases of CCS that present with one or a few tumors are distinguished form CCS by testing for the CYLD gene: all individuals with CCS carry a mutated CYLD gene in their tumor as well as other tissues such as blood leucocytes while individuals with sporadic SA or SAC carry the mutated CYLD gene in their tumor but not other tissues (see Genetics of CCS). It is important to afford individuals with CCS and the close family members of these individuals access to in depth genetic counselling. Treatments
There is no consensus on the best treatment(s) for SA and SAC tumors. Further research, including meta-analysis comparisons of different treatment regimens, is needed to define the best treatment(s) for these tumors. In all cases, however, regular follow-ups of individuals with SA and SAC are strongly recommended in order to detect as early as possible: the formation of new tumors; changes in old tumors that suggest their progression to more aggressive or malignant formss; local recurrences of surgically removed tumors; and the development of local or distant metastases. One recommended follow-up strategy prescribes patients to have check-ups ever three months in the first year after treatment, every six months in the second year after treatment, and annually thereafter.
Spiradenomas (SA) are rare, benign cutaneous adnexal tumors that may progress to become their malignant counterparts, i.e. spiradenocarcinomas (SAC). Cutaneous adnexal tumors are a group of skin tumors consisting of tissues that have differentiated (i.e. matured from stem cells) towards one of the four primary adnexal structures found in normal skin: hair follicles, sebaceous sweat glands, apocrine sweat glands, and eccrine sweat glands. SA and SAC tumors were regarded as eccrine gland tumors and termed eccrine spiradenomas and eccrine spiradenocarcinomas, respectively. However, more recent studies have found them to be hair follicle tumors and commonly term them spiradenomas and spiradenocarcinomas, respectively. Further confusing the situation, SA-like and SAC-like tumors are also 1) manifestations of the inherited disorder, CYLD cutaneous syndrome (CCS), and 2) have repeatedly been confused with an entirely different tumor, adenoid cystic carcinomas of the salivary gland. Here, SA and SAC are strictly defined as sporadic hair follicle tumors that do not include the hereditary CCS spiradenomas and heridtary spiradenocarcinoms of CCS or the adenoid cystic carcinomas. SA tumors usually occur as slow-growing, single, small, nodular lesions located in the skin of the head, neck, or trunk. SAC tumors develop from benign SA tumors or in very rare cases begin as malignant tumors. SA and SAC tumors must be distinguished from the spiradenoma and spiradenocaricnoma tumors that develop in individuals afflicted with the CYLD cutaneous syndrome.