4 Encouraging Facts About Skin Cancer Surgery

Skin cancer surgery treats skin cancer by physically removing the cancerous cells from your skin. Using modern techniques like Mohs surgery, our dermatologists can easily treat many of the most common skin cancer types. 

Early detection is the key to a great skin cancer surgery outcome. Regular screenings at our practice Orlando Dermatology Center in Oviedo and Orlando, Florida, can help you find skin cancers like squamous or basal cell carcinomas before they can spread. 

Our board-certified dermatologist Vitaly Blatnoy, MD, and team specialize in skin cancer surgery, which might be the only treatment you need. 

Although skin cancer surgeries are straightforward, any new procedure can feel intimidating. If you need skin cancer surgery, consider these four encouraging facts to ease your mind:

1. You have options

Not all skin cancer surgeries are the same. Our team chooses a technique based on your skin cancer type, lesion size, and location. Our best options are:

Excision surgery

Excision surgery involves cutting the cancerous lesion off your skin with a scalpel. We remove a roughly four millimeter margin of healthy tissue around the lesion to make sure all cancerous cells are removed. 

Curettage and electrodesiccation 

Curettage and electrodesiccation involve scraping cancerous cells from your skin before cauterizing the area to stop bleeding. 

Mohs surgery 

Mohs surgery is similar to excision but doesn’t require the removal of healthy tissue. This technique happens in stages: We remove one fine layer of cancerous tissue at a time and examine it under a microscope to guide the next move. We repeat the steps until cancerous cells no longer exist in the area. 

2. Skin cancer surgery has a high cure rate

Skin cancer surgery might be the only treatment you need to get rid of all cancerous cells. That’s because skin cancer surgery has a relatively high cure rate when the cancer hasn’t yet metastasized. 

Mohs surgery, for example, has a 99% cure rate when treating cancer for the first time and a 94% cure rate for recurrent skin cancer. 

Our team might recommend regular skin cancer screenings after skin cancer surgery to check for recurrent cancer and catch it early if it reappears. 

3. Modern techniques allow for minimal scarring

Mohs surgery has gained popularity for treating basal and squamous cell carcinomas because of a high cure rate and precision. 

By only removing cancerous tissue and no margin of healthy skin around it, Mohs surgery offers minimal scarring. It’s an excellent option for cancerous lesions in delicate areas like your face, ears, or genitals. 

4. No general anesthesia

General anesthesia, which renders you unconscious, isn’t necessary for skin cancer surgery in most cases. Instead, our team uses local anesthesia to numb only the skin around your cancerous lesion. 

You stay awake during your surgery and can safely drive yourself home afterward. There’s no hospital stay. Instead, you can get skin cancer surgery at our practice.

Schedule your next skin cancer screening

Skin cancer screenings help you detect skin cancer in the early stages when surgery can successfully treat it. Call us today at Orlando Dermatology Center to book your next appointment or request an appointment online.