If examination shows that a removed mole or skin lesion is a melanoma, a second surgery often follows.
During this procedure, the doctor removes extra skin around the area where the melanoma was located.
Why is extra skin removed?
Even if the melanoma appears to have been completely removed during the first surgery, doctors usually remove an additional margin of skin.
This is done to reduce the chance that melanoma cells have been left behind around the original site.
How much skin is removed depends, among other things, on the Breslow thickness: how deeply the melanoma had grown into the skin. For a thicker melanoma, the extra margin is usually larger.
What happens to the removed tissue?
The removed piece of skin is re-examined under the microscope.
This examination checks whether melanoma cells are still visible at the margins. This helps doctors determine whether the melanoma has been completely removed from that site.
What is most important to know?
A re-excision does not automatically mean that visible melanoma was still present.
It is a standard follow-up step to remove extra skin around the original site to achieve a sufficient margin.
Is anything in this explanation still unclear?
