Predicting Recurrence of Basal‐Cell Carcinomas Treated by Microscopically Controlled Excision. A Recurrence Index Score

DARRELL S. RIGEL, PERRY ROBINS, ROBERT J. FRIEDMAN

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

48 Scopus citations

Abstract

Despite the high cure rate achieved for basal‐cell carcinomas treated with microscopically controlled excision, recurrences do occur. To determine if lesions that are likely to recur may be predicted at the time of surgery, data from 5020 patients with 7010 basal‐cell carcinomas treated with Mohs' technique were reviewed. Two thousand nine hundred sixty (2960) lesions with five‐year follow‐up were studied (overall recurrence rate = 2.6%). Sex and age of the patients, size and location of lesions, types of previous therapy, and the number of surgical stages of microscopically controlled excision were all found to correlate significantly with recurrence rate (p < 0.01). Multiple regression analysis was performed to determine the relative contribution of each of these variables to predictability of recurrences by a weighted scoring system. The derived model delineated the lesions into no‐risk, low‐, medium‐, and high‐risk groupings (p < 0.000001). Lesions in the high‐risk group had a recurrence rate of 10.1%, almost four times greater than the average. More aggressive microscopically controlled excisions and closer follow‐up care are indicated for those lesions that can be predicted to result in a high‐risk score. 1981 American Society for Dermatologic Surgery, Inc.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)807-810
Number of pages4
JournalDermatologic Surgery
Volume7
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 1981
Externally publishedYes

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