HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF NONMELANOMA SKIN-CANCER

The study of medical history teaches us how as physicians we can learn to recognize and describe diseases long before having a clear underst anding of either their etiology or pathogenesis.(1) Being an external organ, skin was most amenable to accurate clinical observation of its living gross pathology and natural course. Hence, the clinical descrip tions of basal cell or squamous cell carcinomas, which may have been w ritten a few centuries ago, are timeless. Treatment had to be planned on these observations. It was not until the latter 19th century that m icroscopic pathologic examination was available to confirm these diagn oses. In this article we have chosen to limit our review to historical aspects of basal cell and squamous cell carcinoma only. Other tumors, such as keratoacanthomas, appendageal carcinomas, and Merkel cell tum ors, have been omitted. The article is divided into three sections. Th e first traces the evolution of basal cell carcinomas as a diagnostic concept. The second section tells the early story of squamous cell car cinoma and its influence on today's concepts of carcinogenesis. The la st section gives a perspective on how treatment methods of basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas evolved and took their place over the las t 125 years.