Correlation Between Incisional Biopsy Histological Subtype and a Mohs Surgery Specimen for Nonmelanoma Skin Cancer.

BACKGROUND: Histological diagnosis of a clinically suspected nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC) is recommended before treatment. For NMSC, concordance between the histological subtype of the preoperative biopsy and the excision specimen of basal cell carcinoma (BCC) has been reported to range from 10% to 81%. No large study on the concordance between NMSC histology seen in a preoperative biopsy with the following tumour specimen from Mohs micrographic surgery (MMS) has been performed in a Latin American population.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to analyse and compare the histological subtype of the incisional biopsies reviewed by the dermatopathologist with the histological subtype of the tumour specimen obtained during MMS interpreted by the dermatopathologist and the Mohs surgeon.

METHODS: A retrospective analysis of 320 NMSC was performed. The interobserver correlation was based on kappa values.

RESULTS: The mean weighted kappa value between the preoperative NMSC biopsy and intraoperative histological subtype of the tumour specimen from MMS analysed by the Mohs surgeon and the dermatopathologist was 0.22 and 0.24, respectively. The correlation in the histologic subtype of the intraoperative tumour specimen from MMS that was interpreted by the dermatopathologist and Mohs surgeon was 0.58.

CONCLUSIONS: Dermatologists need to be aware of the limited value of incisional biopsies to accurately diagnose the histological subtype of a NMSC. The concordance rate in the histological diagnosis of the tumour specimens that were obtained from MMS between the Mohs surgeon and the dermatopathologist is moderate. However, the correlation is low compared with incisional biopsy subtypes.