What is Mohs surgery for skin cancer?
Firstly it may be helpful to know that most skin cancers can be successfully treated. There is a 95% cure rate for the two most common types, which are rodent ulcers (or basal cell carcinomas/BCCs) and squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs). However, occasionally these cancers can spread in an irregular and unpredictable way. Mohs’ surgery is a type of surgery for skin cancer that enables the surgeon to remove all of the cancer, in several stages, without removing too much healthy tissue. This type of surgery is also called ‘micrographic surgery’, which means that a microscope is used to examine what is being done during the procedure. Frederick Mohs was an American surgeon who, during the 1940s, pioneered this new type of surgery. In Mohs’ surgery, the tumour is removed piece by piece. Each piece removed is microscopically examined straight away. If examination under the microscope shows that some cancer might still be present, then more tissue is removed and examined. This process continues
