[Why Mohs micrographic surgery?].
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to V Chaussade.
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OBJECTIVE: Mohs'micrographic surgery is generally considered as the best procedure for the treatment of difficult basal cell carcinomas. It is supposed to be costly, but an economic evaluation, with a cost-outcome analysis, is necessary to estimate the actual contribution of this procedure in skin cancer treatment, in comparison with the reference procedure, i.e. traditional surgical excision. Our aim was to evaluate the actual cost of Mohs'surgery applied on basal cell carcinoma treatment in France. METHODS: The charts of 97 patients treated by Mohs'surgery between january 1997 and july 2001 in a teaching hospital near Paris (Ambroise Paré hospital, Boulogne), where Mohs'surgery is exclusively performed in France, were reviewed. Direct costs were derived from resource utilization of staff and material required for Mohs'surgery, estimated by a micro-costing method. Indirect costs and total costs were then calculated. RESULTS: When adding surgery and pathology facility costs, mean direct and total costs per basal cell carcinoma were 776.0 (range: 538.4-1273.9), and 1014.6 Euros (range: 777-1512.4), respectively. When including costs of diagnosis, the average total cost per procedure was 1084.3 Euros. DISCUSSION: These costs appear higher than those obtained with other methods of valuation of hospital costs used in France, but they are slightly lower than those found in the literature. The next stage will be to estimate, in the same way, the cost of traditional surgical excision for the same type of lesions, and to calculate the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio between the two procedures, with rate of recurrence at five years as the effectiveness outcome.
INTRODUCTION: Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans is a tumor of intermediate malignancy characterized by its aggressive local growth due to pseudopodium-like outgrowths and marked propensity to recur after surgical excision. To achieve complete cure with conventional surgery, surgical margins up to 5 cm are required, leading to wide scars. Mohs' micrographic surgery is used for the removal of certain malignant tumors, both ensuring complete excision by examination of all margins as well as minimizing normal tissue loss. However, differentiating minimal residual tumor from normal skin can be difficult on the frozen sections used in Mohs' micrographic surgery. Our aim was to develop a procedure of Mohs' micrographic surgery in conjunction with rush formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tangential sections. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Ten consecutive cases have been prospectively treated since 1998. Under local anesthesia, the tumor was first excised including lateral margin of 1 cm and a deep margin including the underlying muscle aponevrosis. A 2 to 3 mm thick horizontal section of the surgical bed was then removed, rush formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded, tangentially sectioned, hematin-eosin stained, and eventually stained with an anti-CD34 monoclonal antibody. While waiting for pathology results, the surgical bed was not definitively closed. If excision was incomplete, an oriented complementary excision was performed. RESULTS: Excision was complete after the first stage in 7 patients and incomplete only deeply in 3. Lateral surgical margins were reduced to 1.3 cm in all patients, facilitating wound closure: direct suture (5 patients), controlled wound healing (3 patients) or flap coverage (2 patients). No recurrence has been observed after a mean follow-up of 26 months. DISCUSSION: The use of Mohs' micrographic surgery in conjunction with rush formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tangential sections reduce surgical margins in dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans. This procedure would be interesting in difficult sites, such as the genitalia, the breast, or the periarticular regions. Other cases, and longer follow-up are however necessary to validate this promising technique.
OBJECTIVES: To systematically review the literature for studies reporting on the role of Mohs' micrographic (MMS) surgery in the treatment of skin tumors. To show how it is performed in France. DESIGN: We reviewed with a quality grid all studies indexed in MEDLINE before 2003/01/01 and published in English or French. Data were extracted by two independent reviewers. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Quality of clinical studies, recurrence rates, number of patients lost to follow-up. RESULTS: No randomized study was found among the 493 references found. Studies of lower quality, on procedures similar to MMS, or previous systematic reviews were therefore selected. In tumors such as basal (BCC) or spinous (SCC) cell carcinoma, microcystic adnexal carcinoma, dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans, and Merkel cell carcinoma, MMS commonly induced lower recurrence rates than figures reported for conventional treatments and/or reduced surgical margins. Studies on melanoma were of low quality. CONCLUSIONS: Although no evidence-based guidelines could be developed, MMS should be used mainly for larger, morphea, micronodular or infiltrative-type, or recurrent BCCs located in danger zones, but also (sometimes with a slightly modified procedure) in microcystic adnexal carcinomas, dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans, Merkel cell carcinoma, and in aggressive forms of SCC. Randomized, controlled studies should be performed.
We report the case of a 11 year-old girl with segmentary vitiligo in the left side of the neck and superior part of the hemithorax, associated to an homolateral Parry-Romberg syndrome. This association had never been reported. The pathogenic hypothesis are discussed. We think that this association can be explained by the autoimmune origin of these diseases.
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Thirty-two patients suffering from subepidermal autoimmune bullous disease were studied prospectively by clinical examination and immunoelectron microscopy. Clinically, 1 patient had herpes gestationnis, 14 typical bullous pemphigoid (BP), 3 epidermolysis acquisita (EBA), 3 cicatricial pemphigoid (CP), and 11 patients overlapping clinical diseases. These 11 patients shared clinical features of BP, EBA, or CP and a clinical diagnosis could not be done safely. Immunoelectron microscopy revealed diaminobenzidine deposits in 20 patients on the epidermal side of dermo-epidermal junction in the lamina lucida as in BP. In 5 patients, deposits located mostly under the anchoring fibril zone, in the floor of a sublamina densa dermoepidermal separation for 2 of them, were consistent with a diagnosis of EBA. In 6 patients, deposits were located mostly in the lamina densa, in the floor of a dermoepidermal separation occurring in the lamina lucida for 3 of them. This suggests that some of these 6 patients had neither EBA or BP, but another autoimmune bullous disease again, an uncharacterized component of dermoepidermal junction located in the lamina densa. Finally, a correlation exists between the sites of IgG and/or C3 components on epidermal or dermal side of dermoepidermal junction and the presence or absence of characteristic clinical features such as scar, milia formation, or mucosal involvement.
It may sometimes be difficult to distinguish primary from secondary hyperparathyroidism when advanced renal failure coexists. We report here the case of a patient with end-stage renal failure who had severe hyperparathyroidism. Cervical exploration revealed only the presence of four parathyroid glands normal in size and histological appearance which were removed. Because the existence of severe hyperparathyroidism had been firmly established based on biochemical and radiological evidence, the diagnosis of primary hyperparathyroidism due to an ectopic adenoma became obvious. Digital angiography and computerized tomography were then carried out. The results of angiography were inconclusive but computerized tomography revealed and precisely localized a mediastinal adenoma which was subsequently removed via sternotomy. The existence of a hypoparathyroid state was confirmed over the following two months. Reimplantation of parathyroid fragments which had been cryopreserved during the first operation, was then performed with success.