Curettage and cautery

The British Association of Dermatologists describes curettage and cautery as a surgical option for low-risk basal cell carcinoma: the lesion is scraped off with a curette, the skin surface is sealed with heat, and the cycle is often repeated a few times back to back to clear all the affected skin. It notes the trade-off plainly: it is usually not possible to test the edges of the sample to confirm complete removal as it is with an excision, but the procedure is generally considered effective for a low-risk basal cell carcinoma. Cancer Research UK adds that there are no stitches, that the area scabs over and heals by itself, and that two or three passes may be needed unless the cancer is very small.

It is also used for selected squamous cell carcinomas. In the pooled analysis of observational studies of treatments for non-metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the skin, the pooled estimate of recurrence after curettage and electrodesiccation was 1.7 percent (95 percent confidence interval 0.5 to 3.4), the second lowest of the seven modalities reviewed, but the authors emphasised that most tumours treated that way were small, low-risk lesions and that comparison across modalities is confounded by which tumours were sent to which treatment.