Clinical Findings and Recurrence Rate of 123 Skin Cancers Treated with Mohs Microscopic Surgery

Son, Soo Bin; Seo, Soo Hong; Son, Sang Wook; Kim, Il Hwan

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Mohs micrographic surgery (MMS) is a specialized type of minimal marginal surgery that offers cure rates superior to other options in the treatment of skin cancer. But only a few reports have been published on the long term outcome of MMS in Korean literatures.
OBJECTIVE
Our purpose was to report the clinical findings and recurrence rates of all patients with cutaneous malignancy treated with MMS.
METHODS
We retrospectively evaluated 123 patients who had been diagnosed with cutaneous malignant tumors and had been treated with MMS and tumor reconstruction. The main outcome measures were patient demographics, duration of tumor, site, preoperative tumor size, method of reconstruction, and recurrence after MMS.
RESULTS
The case series comprised 123 patients (51.2% female and 48.8% male) with a mean age of 65.8 years. Most tumors (78.0%) were on the face and 56.6% of all type of skin tumor were located on the left side. The most common skin tumor was basal cell carcinoma (67.5%). The local flap was the most common method to repair surgical defects (49.6%). Recurrence after MMS was diagnosed in 3 of the 123 patients (2.44%).
CONCLUSION
MMS may be a safe and satisfactory method for the treatment of cutaneous malignant tumors and the low recurrence rate with MMS emphasizes the importance of margin controlled excision.