Mohs Surgery for Skin Cancer - Health Tips

Get practical tips regarding Mohs Surgery for Skin Cancer to help you prepare for your appointments and manage your care from home.

Thoughts on Mohs Surgery for Skin Cancer by Dr. Jay Adams, MD
August 2022

Mohs surgery is a specialized treatment for skin cancers developed by Dr. Frederick Mohs, a general surgeon, in the 1930s.  It proved to give a high cure rate for difficult skin cancers and was later adopted and refined primarily by dermatologists who treat the majority of skin cancers in modern medicine.

Mohs surgery requires the same physician to act both as surgeon (the removal of tissue) and as pathologist (reading and interpreting the slides to check the lateral and deep margins of excision).

The advantages of Mohs surgery are:

​A very high cure rate, exceeding 95 percent for primary (previously untreated) skin cancers.

Preservation of normal tissue, removal of only the cancer and a small margin of surrounding tissue.

Better repairs of the surgical defects by keeping the wounds smaller and being assured of tumor clearance.

 
The main disadvantage of Mohs surgery is that it is labor intensive, time consuming and therefore more expensive than some other methods of skin cancer treatment.

​Mohs is primarily used for the treatment of skin cancers in important functional and cosmetic areas like ears, noses, lips, eyelids, fingers and genital areas. It may also be used for large, recurrent or difficult tumors in other areas. In these areas assurance of cancer removal, keeping the surgical defects smaller and being assured of tumor-free margins before extensive repairs like flaps or grafts if needed.

Thoughts on Mohs Surgery for Skin Cancer by Dr. Jeffrey Ellis, MD
February 2009

Mohs surgery has become the standard of care for treating basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas on the face and other sensitive areas of the body.

The ability to achieve higher cure rates while removing a smaller amount of normal tissue is a powerful technique that has led to significant improvements in the quality of patient care.

Thoughts on Mohs Surgery for Skin Cancer by Dr. Daniel Siegel, MD
January 2006

Mohs surgery offers the highest cure rates available today and is considered the gold standard of treatment for skin cancers involving the head, face, neck, hands, feet and cosmetically sensitive areas.

All anesthesia is local and surgeries are performed in an office setting.

It takes 5 to 30 minutes to remove each layer of tissue and 1 to 2 hours to process and examine it.

Most tumors require the removal of one or two layers, but since this is not known until surgery has begun, we ask patients to put aside 2 to 6 hours of time when they schedule their surgical appointment.

To optimize wound healing, we recommend keeping the wound as moist as possible. We usually recommend applying an ample amount of Vaseline to the wound two or more times a day.

The chances of getting another skin cancer, such as a basal cell carcinoma or a squamous cell carcinoma, are greater after you have already had one. It can appear anywhere on the body, but most commonly on sun-exposed areas.