There were no local recurrences when Mohs surgery was used to treat early stage Merkel cell carcinomas in 53 patients at the Zitelli and Brodland Skin Cancer Center, Pittsburgh.
The results compare favorably with the standard treatment approach, wide local excision with or without radiation, which has a local recurrence rate of 4.2%-31.7% because of incomplete excision or false negative margins, said Vitaly Terushkin, MD, a Mohs surgeon who presented the findings of the study, a retrospective chart review, at the annual meeting of the American College of Mohs Surgery.
Mohs surgery as monotherapy offered "survival at least as good as historical controls treated with wide local excision plus radiation therapy, and because of the superior local control, Mohs surgery may obviate the need for adjuvant radiation and decrease the chance for additional surgery for the treatment of local recurrence," said Terushkin, now in practice in the New York City area.
"We hope this data fuel additional studies with larger cohorts to continue to explore the value of Mohs for Merkel cell carcinoma," he said.
The findings add to a growing body of literature supporting Mohs for many types of rare tumors. "Micrographic surgery or complete circumferential peripheral and deep margin analysis has been shown to be superior to wide local excision in a variety of tumors and clinical scenarios," said
