Recall Activity: What Happens Before and After Basal Cell Carcinomas’ Surgery?

We performed one of the most extensive study in scientific literature (3,957 excisions, 2,358 patients) about basal cell carcinoma (BCC) focusing on the behavioral patterns,1 the risk factors associated to incomplete excisions,2 and the following preferred surgical management.2 The data about each patient and each surgery were carefully organized in a Microsoft Office Excel 2003 (Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-6399 USA) database. The long time lapse (from January 1992 and September 2007) of the study and the huge number of considered variables (gender, age at first intervention, months waited by the patient before undergoing a plastic surgeon’s examination, date of biopsy when performed, histological subtype after biopsy, depth of infiltration after biopsy, date of surgery, anatomical site, size, surgical technique of repair, histological subtype after surgery, depth of infiltration after surgery, complete vs incomplete excision, margins involvement, multiple lesions treated in the same surgical session, and primary vs recurrent BCC) unavoidably lead to spotted missing information of our database, due substantially to desultory incomplete clinical folders. Furthermore, patient clinical folder does not include post-surgical treatment (chemotherapy, radiotherapy, etc) and surgery performed in other hospitals.