Sebaceous cysts - Conditions - Peach Cosmetic Medicine, Sydney, Australia

Often pea- or grape-sized, these lumps under the skin are annoying but harmless. If they don't bother you, leave them alone. If you have a bothersome one, we can excise it for you with an excellent cosmetic result.

These skin cysts are very common in people of European background. They are soft, uninflamed, often the size of a button but can get much larger, and always have a tiny black dot on their surface called “punctum”. Sometimes a discharge emerges from them, the consistency of cottage cheese and pungent in odor (My apologies, but this IS a medical website). When they occur on the scalp the structure is called a “wen”

Sebaceous cysts (aka epidermoid cysts) are perfectly safe. They may occasionally become inflamed but antibiotics tend not to help them. They can be safely left alone, but may appear unsightly and so patients will come for management.

To the uninitiated it would be tempting to just squeeze or pierce these sebaceous cysts, however, when this is dome the cyst always returns. The only correct treatment is to excise them completely, preferably without breaking their cyst wall. The cysts reside under the skin and are attached to skin, but generally they can be excised with little or no skin loss and so the resultant scar is linear, unstretched and barely perceptible

Dr Mahony can excise sebaceous cysts at Peach Cosmetic Medicine