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Clinical features

Authoring team

  • usually affects middle aged or elderly

  • common sites are in scar tissue and sun damaged skin on the face, in a region above a line drawn between the corner of the mouth and the lobe of the ear

  • the initial lesion is a small pearly-white nodule with visible (telangiectatic) blood vessels; early lesions may bleed and ulcerate and then heal again

  • a red nodule forms which expands to leave a characteristic rolled edge with central ulceration ('rodent ulcer')

  • 30% multiple

  • invasion is usually local. Metastasis is rare - metastatic rate is 0.0028%

Reference

  1. Peris K, Fargnoli MC, Kaufmann R, et al. European consensus-based interdisciplinary guideline for diagnosis and treatment of basal cell carcinoma-update 2023. Eur J Cancer. 2023 Oct;192:113254.

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