Evaluation of effectiveness of surgical treatment and histopathological characteristics of basal cell carcinoma in Turkish patients

Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common cancer in the white population. This study was undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of surgical treatment and to define histological features of BCC in Turkish patients. We prospectively studied 50 patients with 57 BCCs treated surgically. The majority of the tumors occurred on the head and neck, most commonly on the nose and the cheek. The excision margin ranged between 2 and 20 mm depending on the size, anatomical location, and clinical appearance of the tumor, and 3 mm margin (35.1%) was the most common excision margin used. Defects following excision were generally closed by local flaps (57.9%). The rate of incomplete excision was 7%. The nodular type (71.9%) was the most frequent histological type. Surgical treatment is an effective and safe method for treating BCC, and histological subtypes of BCC must be recognized and reported by pathologists.