[Incidence of complications in dermatological surgery of melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer in patients with multiple comorbidity and/or antiplatelet-anticoagulants. Five year experience in our Hospital].

INTRODUCTION

Surgery is performed more frequently now at days, due to the increasing incidence of melanoma and no-melanoma skin cancer. There are different opinions among dermatologic surgeons between to continue or discontinue antithrombotic therapy prior to the procedure, which increases the risk of thromboembolic events. Prophylaxis with oral antibiotics in the postsurgical period is controversial.

OBJECTIVE

To report the safety of surgery without suspending antithrombotic therapy and without oral antibiotic prophylaxis in dermatology surgery of patients with multiple comorbidities and polypharmacy.

METHOD

We designed a retrospective study. We included a total of 655 patients; 96.6% had at least one comorbidity; 27.7% used aspirin and 4.3% some type of antithrombotic therapy. The most common type of skin tumor was basal cell carcinoma with 69.8% .

RESULTS

The complication rate was 4.2%; the most was wound dehiscence (1.1%), followed by partial necrosis (0.9%), infection (0.9%), reaction to foreign body (0.6%), complete necrosis (0.3%), bleeding (0.2%) and fistulae (0.2%).

CONCLUSIONS

Based on the literature and our experience, dermatologic surgery is safe without suspending antithrombotic therapy or antibiotic prophylaxis in patients with multiple comorbidity.