Mohs Surgery: The Gold Standard in Skin Cancer Care

A cancer diagnosis of any kind is never good news, and unfortunately, about one in five Americans will receive a skin cancer diagnosis by the age of 70. 

Among the most successful and effective methods for fighting back against skin cancer, including squamous and basal cell carcinomas and melanoma, is through Mohs microscopic surgery. This gold standard in skin cancer treatment not only boasts an incredible 98% cure rate, but it’s also a tissue-sparing technique that minimizes the cosmetic impact.

Let’s turn to the team of skin cancer experts at Orange Coast Dermatology to learn why Mohs surgery is so successful in combating skin cancers in cosmetically sensitive areas. In the following, we look at how Mohs surgery rises head and shoulders above other skin cancer treatments.

Containing and eradicating skin cancer with Mohs

Anytime there's a cancer diagnosis, the objectives are simple — contain and eradicate the cancerous tumors, growths, and cells, as quickly as possible.

In many cases, this involves first excising the cancerous tissues, which means cutting it out. Applied to skin cancer, this often means slicing away the cancerous growth, as well as a healthy margin around it, to make sure that we fully eliminate the cancer.

Since most skin cancers are due to exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet rays, they tend to crop up in highly exposed areas, such as around your head, face, and hands. Because these areas are highly exposed, they are cosmetically sensitive so that overzealous excision techniques can leave lasting, noticeable scarring.

With Mohs, we can expand our objectives — we can eradicate the cancer while minimizing the cosmetic impact. And results have been incredible, which explains why 876,000 Mohs surgeries are performed in the United States each year — and this number is growing fast.

Layer by layer with Mohs

Mohs was first introduced in the 1930s by Dr. Frederic Mohs as a way to safely get rid of skin cancer lesions while reducing collateral tissue damage.

To do this, a Mohs surgeon is specifically trained in a microscopic technique, which involves removing the cancerous tissue in thin layers. 

Our first steps are outlining your skin cancer lesion and then removing the first thin layer of tissue. We freeze this tissue immediately and then flatten it between two slides so that we can see the edges clearly. We then take these slides and observe the tissue layer under a microscope to look for cancerous cells.

As we remove each layer, we mark a new, smaller perimeter as we go until we find no more evidence of cancerous cells.

This is a painstaking process that can take hours, but it allows us to remove only the tissue we need to eradicate to contain the cancer, while sparing healthy surrounding tissue. As a result, you can happily move forward without skin cancer and without a lasting reminder of the experience in the form of scarring.

If you’d like to review whether you’re a good candidate for the Mohs procedure, we invite you to contact one of our offices in Rancho Santa Margarita, Orange, or Mission Viejo, California, today to schedule a consultation.