A report of 12 cases of basal cell carcinoma arising in lesions following laser therapy.

Since the latter half of the 1990s, laser treatment has become a common practice in Korea. A group of patients diagnosed as having basal cell carcinoma (BCC) also had a history of prior laser therapy performed on undiagnosed cutaneous lesions. Clinical and histologic evaluations of these cases were performed retrospectively. Among the 138 patients who were diagnosed with BCC from 1997 to 2001, 12 lesions (8.7%, 3 males and 9 females) developed following previous laser treatment to remove undiagnosed lesions. The mean age of the patients was 55.6 years, which was younger than that of the general Korean population (62.7 years), and their noses were the most common site of lesion development. The lesions had disappeared grossly after laser therapy for 6 patients, but for the other 6 patients, their lesions had persisted or grown. The interval between the time of laser therapy and diagnosis of BCC ranged from 1 month to 3 years. The average interval was 18 months. Histologically, aggressive forms were more common in these cases as compared with the usual patterns of BCCs. Although we do not think that laser therapy causes the development of BCC directly, laser therapy does not seem to be adequate for undiagnosed lesions. And our conclusion is that the cutaneous lesions should be biopsied and thoroughly diagnosed and managed prior to laser therapy.