Basal Cell Carcinoma
CHEEK BASAL CELL CARCINOMA RECURRENCE
Additional soft tissue margin for permanent histology, additional bone margins for permanent histology, partial reconstruction with inferior nasolabial fold/cheek island flap. HISTORY 83 year old man presented in 12/2016 with a 3 month history of a growing painful subcutaneous nodule at the right cheek nasal junction. A biopsy revealed infiltrative basal cell carcinoma. The nodule…
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CONJUCTIVAL SQUAMOUS CELL CARCINOMA
HISTORY 69 year old man presented in August 2016 for a large papillomatous lesion of the left inferior cornea. Patient has a history of left lower eyelid basal cell carcinoma that was treated in 2014. The area of corneal carcinoma was initially thought to be exposure keratitis. DISCUSSION The patient is a 69-year-old organ transplant…
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PDT Across the Atlantic and Medical Economics
Does medical economics bias the community standards for treatment of skin cancers? If the answer is yes, then photodynamic therapy serves as an illustrative example of this bias. Private practice dermatology in the US and National Health Service of UK are practice settings with significantly different economics and also different treatment goals. The one’s is…
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Lower Eyelid Reconstruction – Tarsoconjunctival Flap
Mohs excision of right lower eyelid basal cell carcinoma left a full thickness lid defect. The reconstruction utilized superiorly based tarsoconjunctival transposition flap, local eyelid skin rotation flap, and right postauricular full-thickness skin graft. This procedure closes the eye for the 2 weeks until the release of the flap is performed. This procedure is necessary…
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Vismodegib – A Breakthrough in Basal Cell Carcinoma Treatment
Vismodegib, a Hedgehog Pathway Inhibitor, has been recently shown to be highly effective for advanced basal cell carcinoma in Phase II clinical studies. Discovery of the Hedgehog Signaling Pathway is enlightening in how three unrelated basic science research paths can meet at crossroads of cancer treatment breakthrough. First, there were sheep in Idaho in 1957…
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Smoothened and Patched and Sonic Hedgehogs – From Cyclopic Sheep to Targeted Basal Cell Carcinoma Treatment
What does Frizzled, Frazzled, Dishevelled, and Smoothened have to do with the Sonic Hedgehog? These are some of the humorously named genes in Drosophila fruit flies that also happened to be expressed in humans. Besides adding character to the genes, these names occasionally reflect the traits they describe. Hedgehog (Hh) gene is part of the…
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