Clinicians at a Panjab University teaching hospital in Chandigarh, India, had a plan for the inflamed lump on their patient's upper back. Antibiotics first, dressings for four weeks, then cut it out once the infection settled. It is the textbook sequence for an infected sebaceous cyst.
The plan lasted one dressing change. As a clinician pressed around the swelling to squeeze out pus, the cyst itself began pushing through the opening in the skin. A gentle pull with forceps brought the whole thing out, wall intact. The wound healed in about 10 days; no operation was needed, and a year later there was nothing there.
