Mohs Surgery

The Mohs surgery procedure is an outpatient surgery performed in our accredited operating room under local anesthesia. Our surgical suite is equipped with an onsite laboratory to perform microscopic examination of the tissue and cancer cells that are removed. Typically, the procedure begins early in the morning and is completed on the same day. The surgeon begins by first meticulously marking the area of the skin that contains the cancer cells. The area is then cleansed, numbed, and draped to ensure that you don’t experience any pain. The smallest incision is made to ensure as little tissue as necessary is removed to clear the tumor with the first layer. The tissue is then mapped and marked for orientation. The specimen is then given to a Mohs technician to process and place on slides for your surgeon to examine under the microscope.

If the surgeon sees evidence of cancer in the edges of this first layer, then she takes another layer only from the area that still contains the cancer cells. This ensures that only the cancerous cells are removed and normal healthy skin is spared. The surgeon then repeats these steps until all the cancer cells are completely removed and your healthy tissue is spared. Typically, skin cancers take anywhere from 1-3 layers for complete removal, although there are exceptions.

Following complete cancer removal, the defect is reconstructed in the utmost cosmetic fashion. As a highly acclaimed cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Shirazi will typically hide scars in natural skin lines and folds to ensure the best cosmetic outcome with very little scarring. There are times when a skin graft or skin flap is required based on certain locations and in certain cases.