Research on treatment of basal cell skin cancer

On 2 December at 15:00, in an open meeting of the Medical Promotion Council of Rīga Stradiņš University, which will be held in the Senate Hall at 16 Dzirciema iela., Rīga, Aleksandrs Derjabo will defend his doctoral thesis “Head and Neck Basal Cell Carcinoma Treatment”.

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common malignant tumour in Latvia – it accounts for around 80% of all non-melanoma cancer types. Currently there are various methods of basal cell carcinoma treatment available, however, none of them guarantees that the treatment will be successful.

The aim of the research is to determine the efficacy of different head and neck basal cell carcinoma treatment methods taking into consideration clinical and histological types, size and exact anatomic localisation, as well as compare these treatment methods with regard to cosmetic results.

It was concluded that in the case of particular clinical type, size and localisation of head and neck basal cell carcinoma, radiotherapy, laser surgery and cryosurgery are as effiective as an operation for basal cell carcinoma treatment. The research contains the restrictions of the application of each method.

The author has developed a head and neck basal cell carcinoma treatment algorithm and unified skin cancer patient clinical card that can be applied in clinical practice.