Virginia Skin Cancer Treatment and Mole Removal
At Virginia Skin & Vein’s Roanoke skin cancer treatment center, we offer effective, minimally invasive procedures for mole removal as well as treatments for non-melanoma skin cancer. Our approach to treating skin cancer focuses on offering our patients alternatives to Mohs microsurgery. While there are certainly cases when Mohs is an appropriate treatment, we find it necessary to refer only about 1 in 1,000 tumors in our practice. When tumors are particularly aggressive or they recur, we do enlist the help of radiation oncology.
At our Virginia skin cancer treatment center, Dr. Martin Smith performs mole removal procedures routinely, and he treats skin cancer patients nearly every day, so it is fairly easy for him to identify many cancers through an office exam. As a result, patients at our Roanoke skin cancer treatment center benefit from our less invasive approach. When we find a tumor, we first do a biopsy to confirm our diagnosis; once we have our tissue sample, we surgically remove any remaining identifiable tumor.
We then employ cryosurgery, a sequence of two freeze/thaw cycles that kills any tumor cells that may have traveled down an adjacent nerve or blood vessel. This method has been proven effective in the treatment of non-melanoma skin cancer, offers good cosmetic results, and is much less expensive than more invasive treatments.
Contact our leading Roanoke skin cancer treatment center today to learn more about minimally invasive skin cancer treatment options and mole removal.
What is non-melanoma (basal or squamous cell) skin cancer?
The most common type of skin cancer, non-melanoma skin cancers originate in either basal cells or squamous cells. The good news is that this type of skin cancer is far less aggressive and dangerous than melanoma, and most cases can be readily treated at our Virginia skin cancer treatment center. Non-melanoma skin cancers are most likely to develop on areas of the body that are often exposed to the sun, such as the face, ears, neck, lips, and the backs of the hands. Non-melanoma skin cancers may be fast or slow growing, but they are unlikely to spread to other parts of the body.
