Assessing current treatment options for patients with severe/advanced basal cell carcinoma.

Skin cancers are the most common form of malignancy, and basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common form of skin cancer. BCCs generally occur sporadically and either singly or in small numbers. When detected and treated early, these tumors are highly curable. When therapy is chosen that is appropriate to the subtype and anatomic location of the lesion, the recurrence rate typically is low. Tumors that are recurrent, aggressive, unresectable, advanced, and/or metastatic are more difficult to treat successfully, as are the multiple BCCs that occur commonly in patients with the genodermatosis known as Gorlin syndrome (also called basal cell nevus syndrome or nevoid basal cell carcinoma syndrome). For these difficult-to-manage patients, the hope for the future lies in chemoprevention.