The Significance of a Single Injury in the Causation of Basal-Cell Carcinoma of the Skin.

The case records arc reported of 13 patients who gave a history of a well-remembered injury, which appeared to have resulted, within a comparatively short period of time, in the development of a basal-cell carcinoma at the same site. Although it is likely that, if such an injury is relevant, it has only accelerated the appearance of a tumour in a precancerous area, it is, none the less, curious that this happening is more commonly recorded in the pathogenesis of a basal-cell carcinoma than in that of a squamous-cell carcinoma. In seven of the cases the injury was a thermal one.