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Surgery is often the best treatment for skin cancer. Your doctor will consider the size, location, and stage of cancer when advising a surgical approach. Our goal is to remove the cancer and a margin of healthy tissue to reduce the risk of cancer returning.

We perform most surgical procedures in the office on an outpatient basis. Depending on your needs, you may see a specialist in our Mohs and Dermatologic Surgery Program.听

Types of skin cancer surgery we offer include:

• Standard excision: Your doctor removes the lesion and some surrounding healthy tissue.
• Mohs micrographic surgery: Mohs surgery is a procedure to remove skin tissue one layer at a time, with immediate processing to detect cancer under the microscope. Your doctor examines each layer for cancer cells and continues the process until the cancer is gone.听
• Curettage and electrodesiccation: Curettage and electrodesiccation can be done for earlier nonmelanoma skin cancer types and involves removing the lesion with a sharp, looped instrument. Your provider then uses a thin needle to deliver electrical energy to the area to destroy any remaining cancer cells.

Photodynamic light therapy is a nonsurgical treatment for some skin cancers and precancerous growths called actinic keratoses. It uses a topical drug applied to the skin and light to destroy cancer cells. This noninvasive therapy can cause skin reactions and may require multiple treatments over time.

Cancer medications range from topical skin creams to medications you receive by mouth, injection, or infusion (IV):

• Topical medications: Topical creams may be an option for early melanoma and non-melanoma cancers on the surface level of the skin. Different topical medications are used to treat skin infections or rashes that occur as side effects of skin cancer therapy.
• Immunotherapy: Immunotherapy involves medications that 鈥渆ase the brakes鈥� off tumor-fighting lymphocytes so they can target cancer cells in the body. Immunotherapy has revolutionized the treatment of melanoma, Merkel cell carcinoma, and advanced squamous and basal cell carcinomas. It has replaced the use of chemotherapy for melanoma. Stanford Medicine Cancer Center is the world leader in the use of tumor infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy for metastatic melanoma.
• Targeted therapy: Targeted therapy involves medications that slow the growth and spread of cancer by targeting specific mutations within cancer cells. Our doctors look for these mutations by testing biopsied tissue samples. Targeted therapy is commonly used for melanoma and advanced basal cell carcinoma.
• Chemotherapy: Chemotherapy听is an older therapy that is not used as often in the skin cancer realm, since immunotherapy and targeted therapy are so much more effective. It stops the growth of rapidly dividing cancerous and noncancerous cells in the body.

Radiation therapy is a treatment that uses high-energy X-rays or other types of radiation to destroy cancer cells. We may use radiation therapy for skin cancer:听

• If surgery is not an option due to patient preference or if the cancer is in a hard-to-treat location, such as the eyelids, nose, or ears
• In addition to surgery, if there is a risk that not all the cancer has been removed or the cancer may come back

If radiation therapy is part of your care plan, we are here to help you prepare and guide you through the process. Our radiation oncologists have extensive experience safely and effectively treating skin cancers with radiation. They use the latest technology to precisely target tumors while minimizing damage to nearby healthy tissue.