Ted Rosen, MD

Dr. Rosen is Professor of Dermatology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas.

Dr. Rosen reports no conflicts of interest in relation to this post.

It is uncommon for a virtual cascade of papers to simultaneously disclose potentially game-changing medical information, especially when physician authors practice in markedly disparate parts of the world. Nonetheless, 2012 brought 3 distinct papers that sharply call into question the accuracy of the standard punch biopsy in determining the subtype of basal cell carcinomas (BCCs).

Kavita Mariwalla, MD

Dr. Mariwalla is the Director of Dermatologic Surgery, Continuum Cancer Centers of New York, New York.

Dr. Mariwalla reports no conflicts of interest in relation to this post.

A recent study in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology has attracted attention in the last few weeks. The authors studied 781,907 women in New South Wales, Australia, from 1994 to 2008 (approximately 1.3 million pregnancies) and found an increase in cancer diagnoses during pregnancy. The results showed that from 1994 to 1997 the crude incidence rate of pregnancy-associated cancer increased from 112.3 to 191.5 per 100,000 pregnancies. Because the study was conducted in Australia, of course one of the most common cancers was melanoma.