From the perspective of an oro-maxillo-facial surgeon with long years of experience, Dr. Tischendorf singles out particular issues in our review article. On the one hand, his own long years of surgical experience support his (and our) view that in selected patients, hedgehog inhibitor therapy is indicated. He emphasized that the therapeutic decision should be made by an interdisciplinary tumor board—something we completely agree with. Furthermore he mentions the risk of tumor recurrences after the use of non-surgical topical therapeutic interventions and draws attention to microscopically controlled surgery (micrographic surgery) as the method of choice, which is associated with low recurrence rates—which is also the case when it is used to operate on recurrences—and with a high probability of long years of complete tumor remission. This is consistent with what we said in our review article and underlines our statements.
We thank Dr. Tischendorf for confirming the key messages of our article and for raising awareness of these. The S2k-guideline on basal cell carcinoma that is currently being finalized—and whose coauthors include Lutz Tischendorf as well as Axel Hauschild, a coauthor of our review article—will be sure to emphasize these key messages.
Footnotes
Conflict of interest statement
Prof. Berking has received consultancy fees (advisory board) from Almirall Hermal, Biofrontera, Galderma, Novartis, and Roche. She has had conference delegate fees covered by Roche and Galderma. Roche, Novartis, and Galderma have covered travel expenses for her. She has received speaker fees from Roche, Galderma, Biofrontera, Almirall Hermal, and Novartis.
References
- 1.Berking C, Hauschild A, Kölbl O, Mast G, Gutzmer R. Basal cell carcinoma—treatments for the commonest skin cancer. Dtsch Arztebl Int. 2014;111:389–395. doi: 10.3238/arztebl.2014.0389. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]