7 Healthcast: MOHS skin cancer surgery

That was the case for one Stoughton woman.

“For probably almost a year I had a pimple right in the crook of my nose,” said Tracey Miller. “I ended up at Brigham Women’s and they did a biopsy and said that I had a pretty large cancerous space on my nose and was going to require surgery.”

The 46-year-old woman was in shock.

“And then that was like oh my goodness, I am going to be disfigured,” said Miller.

But her fears were soon put to rest, thanks to the benefits of MOHS surgery, offered at Faulkner Hospital.

“It’s a way that you surgically cut out the cancer, and then immediately while the patient is waiting in the waiting room, bring their tissue to the laboratory to look at it under the microscope,” said Dr. Chrys Scmults of Faulkner Hospital.

MOHS surgery, unlike conventional treatment, allows doctors to find out right away that the tumor is completely removed - instead of waiting days for lab results.

“With non-MOHS surgical incision, it’s possible that a week later when you get your pathology results, on occasion it happens that the entire tumor has not been removed, and then patients have to have a second procedure after that, that doesn’t happen with MOHS,” said Scmults.

When removing the tumor, traditional treatments normally only get to some of the layers, but with MOHS, the entire tumor and perimeter are removed.

“The nice thing about MOHS is being able to examine that entire surgical margin while the patient is waiting and the patient being able to leave knowing that their tumor is completely out,” said Scmults.

After lab results come back surgeons are able to reconstruct the skin surrounding the tumor immediately. The whole procedure start to finish is done in one day.

For Tracey, it was the best option.

“I think had I had a regular surgery it would be very noticeable and here I am and I think she did a great job,” said Miller.

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