Surgery for Skin Cancer

Physicians may use liquid nitrogen on precancerous conditions to freeze and kill the cells. The skin will later blister and shed off. This procedure will sometimes leave a white scar. More than one freezing may be needed.

If you have a precancerous condition that’s only in the outer layer of your skin, your physician may use laser therapy (a narrow beam of high-intensity light) to destroy the cells.

This is a common procedure that removes the cancer with a sharp, spoon-shaped instrument called a curette. Electrodessication uses an electric current to control bleeding and kill any remaining cancer cells after your physician uses the curette. You may be left with a white, flat scar after this procedure.

Depending on the size and location of your tumor, your physician may recommend Mohs surgery. The surgeon removes one thin layer of tissue at a time, then each layer is examined with a microscope (called micrography surgery) to see if another layer needs to be removed to get all the tumor. Mohs surgery is sometimes used for skin cancer in cosmetically sensitive areas like the face (to reduce the amount of skin removed), for tumors with poorly defined borders, or for cancers that have come back.

Some skin cancers can be successfully removed by cutting them out. This skin cancer surgery is called wide excision. During wide excision, the physician removes the tumor, along with a margin of normal-looking skin around the tumor. If the cancer is thicker, your surgeon will have to cut wider margins. This is important so that the cancer does not grow back at the original location later. 

After your skin cancer surgery, the surgical oncologist may be able to close the wound by bringing the edges of the skin together. If the wound is too large or the cancer went too deep, however, a reconstructive surgeon can close the wound using other types of procedures. One is closing the wound with nearby skin that is turned into place (called local tissue rearrangement). Other procedures use skin from another part of your body (skin grafting) or skin plus other tissue from another body area (called free-flap reconstruction).

Learn more about reconstructive surgery.