Finding out you have skin cancer can be stressful. After all, any diagnosis that includes the word “cancer” can spike your blood pressure.
Mohs surgery is a specialized treatment option dermatologists use to carefully remove all cancerous tissue and preserve as much healthy skin as possible. At Christos Doctors Inn Walk In Health Care in Lauderhill, Florida, Dr. Christopher Smith provides Mohs surgery as an advanced skin cancer treatment option. Here’s how it works.
Mohs surgery is an in-office, hands-on surgical technique that removes very thin slivers of skin tissue at a time, each examined for cancer cells, until a layer of healthy cells is reached. This approach preserves as much healthy skin tissue as possible and can lead to less noticeable scarring than an excision.
This technique isn’t a good fit for every form of skin cancer. It’s most commonly used to treat basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma.
Mohs surgery can also work for certain forms of melanoma, but because melanoma is a more aggressive form of skin cancer, you may need a different approach or a combination of surgery and immunotherapy or radiation.
If Dr. Smith determines that Mohs surgery is a good fit for your needs, you’ll come in for your procedure and leave the same day. You receive a local anesthetic, which numbs the treatment area to keep you comfortable.
Before the process begins, you need to remove any clothing that covers the area of focus; we can provide a gown if needed. Once Dr. Smith examines the area and the anesthetic has numbed it, he uses a scalpel to remove the visible portion of the cancerous lesion.
Next, he removes a very thin layer of tissue from beneath and immediately around the cancerous tissue, called the margin. You wait while he examines that tissue microscopically to look for signs of cancer. This process repeats until all cancer is removed and the margins are clean.
Depending on the location of your lesion and the amount of tissue being removed, you may have a temporary bandage placed over the surgical site to protect it while you wait for Dr. Smith to complete the tissue examination. Waiting is often the most difficult part.
Some Mohs surgery procedures take a few hours, but others can take most of the day. It’s not possible to look at a cancerous lesion and predict how deep the cancer extends into your skin.
When the surgery is complete, Dr. Smith assesses the site to determine the best way to proceed. You may need only a bandage to allow the skin to heal. More in-depth procedures might require suturing or a skin graft to close the wound and facilitate healing.
If you have additional questions or concerns about Mohs surgery, or if you’re ready to schedule your procedure, the dermatology team at Christos Doctors Inn Walk In Health Care is here to help. You can contact us by phone during normal business hours to check appointment availability, and we also offer convenient online booking as an option.
