Auricular swelling is seen in auricular hematoma, pseudocyst, chondritis, atheroma, and infection of ear fistula and others. Auricular hematoma mostly occurs in the superior anterior part of the auricle after a certain trauma, and blood is aspirated with puncture. However, we recently experienced 9 cases (a total of 10 auricle) of auricular swelling in which there was no obvious past history of trauma and the serum was aspirated by puncture.
The patients visited our clinic 5 days, on the average, after first recognition of the swelling. In all cases except one, a soft swelling was observed between the antihelix and concha and the symptom was relatively mild without severe pain. In all cases, small amount of the rose-wine colored or straw-colored serum (0.2-1.0ml) was aspirated by puncture. In most cases, serum accumulation reappeared after the first aspiration, and further twice or 3 times of aspiration of serum were required.
Characteristics of these 9 cases are summarized such as 1) no obvious past history of trauma, 2) accumulation of small amount of the rose-wine colored or straw-colored serum, 3) site of predilection is in between the antihelix and concha, 4) no remarkable sign of inflammation or severe pain, 5) disappearance without marked fibrous tissue proliferation. The term auricular seroma seems to be more appropriate to these conditions. There are few reports about the auricular seroma, and the definition of auricular seroma has not been clearly settled. We advocate that an auricular seroma should be treated as an independent disease entity that is different from other auricular swelling, such as auricular hematoma or pseudocyst.