Dermatologic surgeryTreatment of basal cell carcinoma with curettage alone
Section snippets
Methods
The records of all patients with biopsy-proven BCC clinically amenable to curettage alone who were treated by a single physician (M. J. Z.) at our institution between August 1993 and October 1998 were identified and reviewed retrospectively. Data on patient demographics, tumor characteristics, and potential medical risk factors for BCC were extracted from medical records. All tumors with at least 5-year follow-up were included. The 5-year cure rate was compared with published cure rates for BCC
Results
The retrospective records review identified 136 patients (49 women and 87 men) with 302 tumors. In all, 58 patients (43%) had more than one tumor and 28 patients (21%) had more than two tumors. As shown in Table II, the mean age was 70.7 years, and the mean clinical follow-up was 6.44 years. The mean tumor diameter was 0.69 cm (SD, 0.38; range, 0.1-2.5 cm), for a mean tumor area of 0.61 cm2. Patient age and sex (Table II) and tumor size were not associated with recurrence. A small percentage of
Discussion
In this retrospective study, the 5-year cure rate of 96.03% for the 302 tumors treated by curettage alone is comparable with published cure rates for C&E. Although a prospective study would be ideal, our strict 5-year cure rate is almost identical to the 95.3% rate McDaniel2 reported in a life-table analysis of 644 tumors treated by curettage alone. Because life-table analysis compensates for the bias of patients lost to follow-up, it is considered the most accurate predictor of the actual rate
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2021, Journal of the American Academy of DermatologyComment on “Surgery versus combined treatment with curettage and imiquimod for nodular basal cell carcinoma: One-year results of a noninferiority, randomized, controlled trial”
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Drs Zalla and Kyle are currently in private practice in Florence, Ky, and Torrance, Calif, respectively.
Funding sources: None.
Conflicts of interest: None identified.
Reprints not available from the authors.