So a patient has skin cancer (duh duh duuuuh). How much of a margin should you give in your excision?
Like all things, this depends on the type of skin cancer
- Basal Cell Carcinoma (BCC)
- Squamous Cell Carcinoma (SCC)
- Melanoma
Low-risk BCCs: 4 mm (high-risk: Mohs surgery)
Low-risk SCCs: 4 mm (high-risk: Mohs surgery)
Melanomas: depends on the tumour (T) stage, which is dependent on tumour thickness
- T1 (<1 mm): 1 cm margin (92% 10 year survival)
- T2 (1-2 mm): 2 cm margin (80% 10 year survival)
- T3 (2-4 mm): 2 cm margin (63% 10 year survival)
- T4 (>4 mm): 2 cm margin (50% 10 year survival)
- Though it might seem counterintuitive that once you’re past 1 mm thickness, you don’t have a bigger margin, but larger margins haven’t been shown to increase survival
Great Information! Thank you for sharing!