The role of electrochemotherapy in the treatment of locally advanced or recurrent eyelid-periocular basal cell carcinoma: long-term results.

Abstract

While electrochemotherapy (ECT) is increasingly utilized as a highly effective method in the treatment of tumors in the head and neck region, there is significantly less data available for eyelid-periocular skin tumors. Our group reported the first extensive case series of eyelid-periocular basal cell carcinoma (BCC) patients with short-term follow-up treatment with ECT. The present study aims to report our long-term results of eyelid-periocular BCC cases treated with ECT. The treatments were performed according to the ESOPE (European Standard Operating Procedures on Electrochemotherapy) guidelines using the Cliniporator™ device. All patients received bleomycin-based ECT, administered intratumorally or intravenously. Tumor response was evaluated using the RECIST 1.1 criteria. The results of 19 patients treated with ECT are presented. Four patients had locally advanced primary tumors, while 15 patients had recurrent tumors. Bleomycin was administered intratumorally in four patients and intravenously in 15 patients. The overall response was 100%, while the complete response rate proved to be 95%. In three cases (15.8%), recurrence was observed during the mean follow-up period of 78.9 months. ECT can effectively treat locally advanced or recurrent BCC in the eyelid-periocular skin region. Excellent tumor control can be achieved with good functional and cosmetic results without systemic adverse events with long interval follow-up.