What is Mohs Surgery?
Mohs surgery differs from other skin cancers treatments in that it permits the immediate microscopic examination of the removed cancerous tissue. Mohs surgery utilizes a real time evaluation of the cancer while you are in the office to allow for us to take the least amount of tissue while also ensuring that you are cancer free.
The Mohs procedure itself involves removing the visible portions of the skin cancer, along with a layer of the surrounding skin. In standard Mohs surgery, it is the surgeon who then processes and reads the slides of the skin. Instead of acting as both the surgeon and the dermatopathologist (a pathologist who only reads skin specimens), we hire a dermatopathologist to bring a staff and their mobile lab unit to process the tissue. This allows us as the surgeon to tend to your defect and focus on giving you the best cosmetic result.
Once the initial layer with margins of skin are removed, it is marked to know the orientation and then is hand delivered to the Dermatopathologist to process, stain, and read the slides. This process usually will take approximately 10-15 minutes on average. Once the slides have been read, the dermatopathologist reviews the report with one of our providers to discuss the margins of the cancer. If the margins are free of cancer, we proceed to repairing the defect with precision sutures and plastic surgery grade technique. If the margins are still present with cancer, additional tissue will be removed from the areas indicated as positive and the process repeats until cancer free margins are obtained.
Using our unique method of mohs surgery allows for each specialty to focus on the task at hand. At Ocean Drive Dermatology, we want to ensure that you are cancer free while also ensuring that you obtain the best cosmetic result. With the hiring of a Dermatopathologist we are safeguarding that you have the highest level of care taken in the evaluation of the specimens, while also ensuring that we have the time to give you the best cosmetic outcome.