[Recurrent skin tumors following radiation injuries. Indication for cryotherapy]

Following skin damage resulting from radiotherapy, pancancerous conditions, carcinomas and basal cell carcinomas not rarely pose therapeutic problems. We encountered those problems severally after radiotherapy of the middle face, for instance for lupus vulgaris or basal cell carcinoma. Senile skin changed over the years by climatological influences may create similar problems. Disorders of blood supply and lack of "tissue material" as consequences of radiation-induced skin atrophy are the reasons for the failure of many attempts of plastic surgery aimed at tumor removal and defect repair. Besides that, the conditions for such operative procedures are progressively deteriorating with the number of tumor recurrences. In these instances cryotherapy offers an excellent therapeutic alternative by virtue of the favorable healing tendency of the cryonecrosis including the final, inconspicuous scar formation.