Presence of residual basal cell carcinoma in re-excised specimens is more probable when deep and lateral margins were positive

In order to quantify presence of residual BCC in patients with histologic positive margins after the first excison and to correlate the presence of residual tumor in re-excised lesions with the location of the positive margin on the first excision, a retrospective evaluation of 2053 surgically treated BCC was performed. Only 38.3% of the re-excised lesions showed residual tumor. In the group of re-excised lesions where residual BCC was found, 13% had lateral positive margin in the first excision, 39% had deep positive margin and 48% had both lateral and deep positive margins. In the group of re-excised lesions where no residual BCC was found, 49% of the primary excised lesions had lateral positive margin, 32% had deep positive margin and 19% had both deep and lateral positive margins. The association between residual tumor and positive margins was statistically significant (p = 0.01). Our findings confirm that presence of residual tumour is more likely when both lateral and deep margins are compromised.

Introduction

In 1691, eighteen years after its original publication, Samuel Pufendorf’s De officio hominis et civis appeared in English translation in London, bearing the title The Whole Duty of Man, According to the Law of Nature. This translation, by Andrew Tooke (1673–1732), professor of geometry at Gresham College, passed largely unaltered through two subsequent editions, in 1698 and 1705, before significant revision and augmentation in the fourth edition of 1716. Unchanged, this text was then reissued as the fifth and final edition of 1735, which is here republished for the first time since.1 Five editions, spanning almost half a century, bear testimony to the English appetite for Pufendorf’s ideas.