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A surgery involving cutting away thin layers of the skin to look for signs of — or to treat — skin cancer. This micrographic surgery has a high cure rate and minimizes damage to healthy skin.
What is it?
Mohs surgery is the most effective technique for treating common non-melanoma skin cancers such as basal cell and squamous cell carcinoma. This surgery removes the cancerous cells while sparing healthy tissue, leaving minimal scarring. Once the cells and impacted tissue layers are removed, a pathologist will review them in a lab. Mohs surgery differs from excisional surgery because it is done in stages, with lab testing done on-site.
The team at Associated Dermatologists uses Mohs surgery to treat cancers such as:
• Basal cell carcinoma
• Squamous cell carcinoma
• Sebaceous carcinoma
• Extramammary Paget disease
• Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans
Mohs is preferred for skin cancers in visible areas, skin cancers that return after a previous treatment, large tumors, aggressive types of cancer, and skin cancer with borders that are not well-defined.
The team at Associated Dermatologists performs Mohs surgery on an outpatient basis using local anesthesia. Each stage of surgery can take up to an hour. As a result, your surgery may take a few hours or an entire day, depending on the size and complexity of your skin cancer.
During the procedure, your provider first removes the visible portion of the tumor. Then they carefully remove a deeper layer of skin and divide it into sections that are color-coded and mapped so the tissue can be traced to its precise location on your skin.
Your provider then views the tissue under a microscope. If any cancer cells are found along the edges (indicating cancer cells still remain in your skin), your provider takes another thin layer of skin from the exact area where the cancer cells originated.
The process of removing, preparing, and examining the tissue continues until all your cancer is gone. Then your provider at Associated Dermatologists reconstructs the area before sending you home.