Cosmetic Outcomes

• Charles T Lee et al. Cancer. 2019. Surgical excision, Mohs micrographic surgery, external-beam radiotherapy, or brachytherapy for indolent skin cancer: An international meta-analysis of 58 studies with 21,000 patients (PMID: 31355928)
  • The objective of this study was to compare the cosmesis and recurrence rates of conventional excision (CE), Mohs micrographic surgery (MMS), external-beam radiation therapy (EBRT), or brachytherapy (BT), for basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma of the skin
  • The summary effect size for "good" cosmesis was 81% (95% CI, 70.6%-89.6%), 74.6% (95% CI, 63%-84.6%), and 97.6% (95% CI, 91.3%-100%) for CE, EBRT, and BT, respectively
  • Good cosmesis was 96.0% in the only MMS study that reported cosmesis
  • One-year recurrence rates were low throughout at 0.8% (95% CI, 0.3%-1.6%), 0.2% (95% CI, 0%-0.6%), 2% (95% CI, 1.3%-2.7%), and 0% (95% CI, 0%-0.5%) for CE, MMS, EBRT, and BT, respectively
  • Conclusions (1) For T1-T2N0 skin cancers, BT and MMS have improved cosmesis over EBRT and CE (2) It is unclear whether this is because of treatment superiority or selection and reporting bias (3) Local control is similar among all modalities at 1 year

Radioactive Cosmetics

Oncology Esthetics