Wow!!
Topical for a biopsy and mail the results. Holy shortcuts batman I think I may have to do my job.
Sorry folks, my sense of humor got the best of me again.
If I have read the posts correctly I would have to say...ouch!!
Topical for a biopsy not the standard of care where I was trained and mailing a report to a patient...thats like sending a copy of my degree ( it's in Latin) to every patient. I suppose it costs less to have a staff member lick the stamp than to actually call the person and relay the results in understandable terms. A normal biopsy report can scare the pants off someone who is not familiar with pathology terms. I agree with Brian, what a piece of work this person is.
Now, as far as biopsies go, punch biopsies and any other biopsy for that matter, doesn't need to be sutured as long as it does not invade/include removing a section of the basement membrane (BM). 5cm or even 10cm for that matter; if the BM remains intact healing by secondary intent should suffice providing the patients primary and secondary clotting mechanisms are intact. If the BM has been removed and/or violated then sutures should be placed to close the wound.
From a pure physiological position sutures put foreign cells next to foreign cells even if they are of the same type ie. skin and skin, that is why scar tissue forms. I have personally observed a patient having over 40% of the surface of his tongue removed by and ENT and no sutures placed. Healing was uneventful. If this procedure went beyond the BM and into the connective and/or muscle tissue then grafting and a combination of sutures would have been used.
Simply, a 1 cm incision will heal at the same rate as a 10 cm incision due to the fact that wounds heal across (primary intention) and from the bottom up (secondary intention) providing that the basement membrane is present (the patient is of normal health and not immunocompromised) to provide the proper cells.
Cheers,
Mike