What is going to happen on the day of the procedure?
- Reception and registration process will be carried out in the waiting room on the 2nd floor.
- Write down for yourself where you’ve parked your car.
- The nurse will accompany you to the operating room.
- The surgeon will clean the treated area and inject a local anesthetic until you will not feel a thing.
- The surgeon will remove the visible tumor along with a thin section of tissue around it, and perform a mapping of the surgical area. The removed tissue will be immediately transferred to a nearby laboratory, where staining will be performed in preparation for a microscope inspection.
- At this time the client is temporarily bandaged and proceeds to wait at the waiting room. The stage of tissue preparation at the laboratory lasts about 30-90 minutes, sometimes more.
- While the client is waiting at the waiting room, the surgeon examines the tissue to see if there are still tumor extensions left. If extensions are found, the surgeon accurately marks their location and the client returns to the operating room for an additional stage, where the remaining tumor extensions are carefully removed and the client then returns back to the waiting room.
- At the end of the process of removing the entire tumor, the surgeon will choose one of the following options to correct the remaining defect:
* Leaving the wound to heal on its own
* Sewing the edges of the wound
- Will perform a reconstruction of the surgical area by an implant or a skin flap.
- At the end of the operation, the patient is bandaged and sent home after receiving instructions on how to change the bandage and the time when to remove the stitches.
Important!
* It is not possible to know in advance how many stages of the surgery will be required.
* On average, two to three steps are required, between which the client waits in the waiting room.
When is the client released home?
* Each surgeon will give instructions per case that will be explained and delivered in writing immediately following the surgery.
Will the surgery leave a scar?
Any surgery leaves a scar. The size of the scar depends on the size of the tumor and the skill of the surgeon. However, since MOHS surgery removes as little healthy tissue as possible, the smallest possible scar is always produced, compared to any other surgery.
What are the odds of the tumor returning?
The chance that the removed cancerous growth will relapse is very small and stands at only about 1% -4%. The most common basal cell carcinoma does not metastasize.
