Mohs Surgery research

The Skin Hospital, a branch of the Skin and Cancer Foundation Australia, is the biggest provider of Mohs surgery in Australia. This is a very specialised technique to treat skin cancer that minimised the removal of healthy skin and increases the chances of complete clearance. At the Skin and Cancer Foundation Australia we are interesting in improving outcomes from Mohs surgery, and recently, we have published a review of the factors that affect the choice of repair after Mohs surgery. We found that factors such as site on the face and size of the defect were relevant, the performing surgeon was also relevant. We will try to understand what are the factors underlying this variability as decisions on closure methods should be made objectively. Evidence Based Surgery is as relevant as Evidence Based Medicine.
With the same objective of gathering evidence, we explored the cost of Mohs surgery compared to traditional excision at initial margin clearance. We found that Mohs surgery was marginally more expensive, but this analysis can’t be considered final without considering the cost of recurrences at a 5 year horizon. This will be the topic of a future paper.