Introduction: We aimed to determine any risk factors associated with 12-month recurrence and non-radical tumour excision of non-melanoma skin cancer where the tumour has been excised with intraoperative, frozen-section (FS) histopathological assessment; and to examine if FS histopathological assessment may be recomended in certain patient categories.
Methods: The study was a single-centre retrospective cohort study based on information obtained from patient charts on those treated primarily with FS-aided excision in the 2017-2019 period. A multiple logistic regression model was used to identify risk factors related to non-radical excision.
Results: A total of 655 patients were included; 521 patients presented with basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and 134 patients presented with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Superficial, morpheaform and infiltrative BCC subtypes were less likely to be radically excised at first surgical removal than were nodular BCC - most significantly for infiltrative BCC with odds ratio (OR) = 0.48 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.29-0.77), p less-than 0.01. BCC on the ear was less likely to be excised completely at primary surgery than were tumours in the face, OR = 0.33 (95% CI: 0.16-0.68, p = 0.002). No significant correlation was found for SCC between complete excision and tumour characteristics.
Conclusion: Our study suggests that compared with patients with nodular BCC, patients with superficial, morpheaform and especially infiltrative BCC tumours may require FS. Non-radical BCC removal is more frequent on the ear, and FS should generally be considered in this location since delayed re-excision is undesirable.
Funding: none.
Trial registration: not relevant.
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