Prevention of intraoperative contamination from large ulcerative cutaneous lesions

A method for managing head and neck malignancies with cutaneous ulceration prior to excision is described. At our institution all lesions with cutaneous extension and erosion have been treated in this manner prior to excision. The exact number of treated cases, however, is unknown, since this number is not placed in the medical record. Although the risk of tumor "take" resulting from the spillage or implantation of tumor cells from an ulcerated lesion is probably small, the previously described technique is simple and inexpensive and should be employed as a precautionary measure to further minimize this risk.