To find the most effective treatments in cystic diseases of soft tissue using three different treatment modalities.

We performed three different treatment modalities-curative excision, incision & steroid injection, and aspiration & human fibrinogen injection-in 75 patients from June 1997 to May 1998 and followed up for at least one year. We analyzed the recurrence rate and patients' satisfaction according to their treatment modalities. We used the Fischer's exact test (P=0.05) to evaluate the results.

In curative excision 4 of 23 patients (18%) were recurred, 6 of 14 patients (43%) were recurred in incision & steroid injection, and 20 of 36 patients (56%) in aspiration & human fibrinogen injection, and it was meaningfully different in statistics. 16 of 23 patients (70%) were satisfied with the result in curative excision, 4 of 14 patients (29%) in steroid injection, and 11 of 36 patients (31%) in aspiration & human fibrinogen injection, and it was also different in statistics. Recurrence was the most popular reason of dissatisfaction.

This study showed that curative excision was the most effective cure method. Because both incision & steroid injection and aspiration & human fibrinogen injection method were easier to perform, cosmetically preferable and much cheaper in cost, these two methods would be recommended before surgical intervention.