Article Text
Summary
We report an unusual case of an elderly man presenting with a fast-growing large malignant tumour involving the skin overlying his permanent pacemaker site. The fast-growing cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma appeared 2 years after pacemaker implantation. Joint specialist input was required to tackle this complex problem as a wide surgical excision would expose the pacemaker generator risking device infection particularly if the skin graft reconstruction failed. Having established that the patient had minimal pacing needs, it was determined through expedited multidisciplinary discussion that the best option was excision of the lesion with skin grafting of the defect by maxillofacial surgical team and pacemaker generator removal by a cardiologist in a joint surgical procedure. The procedure was successful and uneventful. This case highlights how effective multidisciplinary planning can help achieve a favourable clinical outcome in a patient with a rare case of a squamous cell carcinoma overlying a pacemaker site.
- cardiovascular medicine
- pacing and electrophysiology
- dermatology
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Footnotes
Contributors NB wrote the manuscript and conducted the literature review. EP was the treating maxillofacial surgeon and obtained the images. FF was the treating cardiologist and critically reviewed the manuscript. All the authors contributed to the intellectual context and approved the final version.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent Obtained.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.