Giant cell angiofibroma is a rare growth in soft tissue that tends to appear in the orbit. We recently saw a mass that looked like a giant cell angiofibroma that was taken out of the lower eyelid of a 56-year-old woman. Randomly ordered CD34-positive spindled and multinucleated cells in an edematous, densely vascular stroma made up the process.
But the patient had just recently had surgery to remove the larynx and radiation treatment for a laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma. A similar lump had formed on the eyelid on the opposite side. Both had appeared several months after treatment.
Lymphedema of the orbit can show up as bumps that look like tumors, and in some cases, it may have histopathological traits that are thought to be typical of giant cell angiofibroma.
It hasn’t been proven that giant cell angiofibroma and lymphedema are linked, but our case shows that there might be one. It is important to be aware of the possible overlap between these two diseases and any other conditions that may come up in the differential diagnosis.