What is Mohs Surgery?
Mohs Micrographic Surgery is a specialized surgical technique in removing skin cancers.
The difference between regular surgical excision and Mohs surgery is two-fold:
1. With regular excision, your surgeon is separate from the pathologist: the surgeon removes the specimen & sends it to another doctor to examine. With Mohs surgery, the Mohs surgeon is both surgeon & pathologist. The Mohs surgeon knows exactly where the skin cancer is still positive. This results in a higher clinicopathologic correlation.
2. With regular surgery, to ensure that the margins are clear using frozen section, the specimen is cut like a bread-loaf and only 1% of the specimen is actually seen under the microscope. In comparison, with Mohs surgery, the specimen is cut "en-face" or horizontally. This ensures that 100% of the specimen is visualized under the microscope.