Rapid growth rate is associated with poor prognosis in cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma

Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) represents the most common form of skin cancer after basal cell carcinoma, and can be both locally invasive and metastatic to distant sites. Growth rate (GR) has been poorly evaluated in cSCC, despite clinical evidence suggesting that GR is an important risk factor in cSCC.

To analyse the influence of GR in cSCC prognosis.

We retrospectively evaluated GR in a series of 90 cSCCs and tried to correlate GR with prognosis in cSCC.

We demonstrated that tumours with a GR of > 4 mm/month exhibit a higher risk of nodal progression and a shorter progression time to lymph node metastasis in cSCC than those with GR of < 4 mm/month. As expected, GR correlated with tumour proliferation, as determined by Ki-67 expression.

We consider a GR of 4 mm/month as the cutoff point that distinguishes between rapid- and slow-progressing tumours and, more importantly, to identify a subset of high-risk cSCCs.