Your skin is one of the most noticeable body organs. Maintaining the health of your skin, therefore, becomes a task. However, you might have developed cancer of the skin and are worried about scars after skin removal; worry not, Chevy Chase Mohs surgery has you covered, offering a 99% cure rate from basal cell carcinomas, squamous cell carcinoma, and melanoma.
What is Mohs Surgery?
Mohs surgery is the most effective and precise surgical technique to treat skin cancer. Your thin layer of skin that contains the cancer is removed until cancer-free tissues remain. It is also known as Mohs micrographic surgery.
It is done in stages, which also include lab works. It first began as chemosurgery developed by Frederic E. Mohs, MD, in the late 1930s. Later, in the mid-1960s, Perry Robinson, MD, studied and helped advance the procedure alongside Dr. Moh to what is now called Mohs surgery.
The goal of the surgery is to remove skin cancer while causing minimal damage to healthy skin tissues. Mohs surgery is useful when the skin cancer is aggressive or large, its borders are hard to be defined, when it is located in areas with healthy tissues you would love to preserve, or you have a high risk or recurrence after previous treatment.
What Happens During the Procedure?
Mohs surgery is done in stages:
· Stage one, examination and prep, where your surgeon notes the area with cancer and injects with local anesthesia, which renders the area completely numb
· Stage two, removal of the top layer of the skin where there is visible cancerous tissue. The layer allows your surgeon to know if cancer has roots extending in your skin tissue that might not be visible.
· Stage three, lab analysis of the tissue that has been cut by your surgeon. This is done using a microscope where the surgeon examines the tissues on the slides to determine if there is any cancer cell remaining and marks their location on the map of the cancerous areas.
· Stage four, the second layer, is removed if the surgeon finds any remaining cancerous cells. It is taken back for analysis, where the process might be repeated if more cancerous cells are found on the second layer. This goes on until there are no more cancer cells.
· Stage five wound repair once the area is clear of all cancerous cells. Depending on size, the wound might be left open to heal or stitched. In other cases, reconstruction might be needed using skin flaps or neighboring tissues.
· Stage six, finish, follow your surgeons’ advice, take good care of your wound, and follow up to achieve the best results.
Advantages of Mohs Surgery
Some of the advantages associated with Mohs surgery include:
· It is precise only removing cancerous tissues, sparing the healthy ones, and it leaves the smallest scar possible
· Mohs surgery has the highest cure rate with up to 99% of first treatment of skin cancer and 94% for skin cancer that has been previously treated and recurred
· Mohs surgery is a cost-effective treatment only requiring a single visit, outpatient surgery, and the fact that it uses local anesthesia.
Talk to a Mohs Surgery Specialist
Everyone deserves to feel good and comfortable in their skin. Contact Ali Hendi, MD, skin cancer and Mohs specialist, to schedule an appointment.