Cryosurgery for Facial and Scalp Lesions of Basal Cell Carcinoma: A Study in 29 Elderly Patients.

Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is one of the pre-eminent tumors of the epidermis, recognized by explicit clinical-pathologic characteristics. It is relatively uncommon in South Asia including India and is amenable to a variety of modalities, including cryosurgery. The outcome of cryosurgery was evaluated in 18 men and 11 women, aged 58 to 83 years, who were treated with two freeze-thaw cycles of liquid nitrogen under local anesthesia, after requisite preparations. Of the 29 patients, 27 had complete clearance of the lesions in the course of 3 years of follow-up, while only 2 had a recurrence, one at 17 months and one at 23 months. Recurrences were treated with a repeat cryosurgery, with a cure rate of 93%. Cryosurgery is a simple, inexpensive, and dermatologist-friendly office procedure with a high cure rates for well-defined facial BCC lesions.

Body to Scalp: Evolving Trends in Body Hair Transplantation.

Follicular unit extraction (FUE) is becoming an increasingly popular method for hair restoration. As FUE leaves behind no linear scars, it is more suitable to harvest from various body areas including beard, chest, and extremities in hirsute individuals. Body hair characteristics such as thickness, length, and hair cycle may not completely match to that of the scalp hair. The techniques of harvesting body hairs are more time consuming, requiring higher degree of skill than regular scalp FUE. Body hair transplantation can be successfully used either alone or in combination with scalp hair in advanced grades of baldness, for improving the cosmetic appearance of hairlines and in scarring alopecia when there is paucity of donor scalp hair. Harvesting of body hairs opens up a new viable donor source for hair restoration surgeons, especially in cases of advanced Norwood grades five and above of androgenetic alopecia.