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Removal of Benign Skin Growths

• Indications for treatment
• Lasers used
• Anaesthetic
• The Procedure
• Post Operative Care

Indications for treatment

This form of surgery is suitable for most benign growths of the face, from excessive growth of skin ("Rumpole’s nose") to small moles and freckles. It is important to be clinically sure that the areas to be treated are not potentially serious.

Who is suitable?

In order to exclude more serious disease the following criteria need to be satisfied before laser treatment can be carried out:

• A history of 5 years or more.
• Minimal growth is allowed, doubling of size should take a minimum of 5 years.
• No change in colour.
• No irregular pigmentation.
• No bleeding.
• No chronic itching/irritation.
• All areas to be treated should be painless.
• No previous history of skin cancer

Once you have consulted your London Laser Clinic surgeon, and these issues have been addressed, it will then be decided whether you are suitable for treatment.

Lasers used

Pigmented areas – (i.e., flat moles, freckles, age spots etc.) - Q switched Ruby or Alexandrite lasers.

Raised/fleshy areas –(i.e., skin nodules, naevi or cysts) - Scanned/Pulsed Carbon Dioxide laser, or superpulsed Carbon Dioxide laser for formal excision of larger growths, such as sebaceous cysts, dermoid cysts and others.

Anaesthetic

This procedure is normally carried out under local anaesthetic, although if there are several areas to treat, sedation can be given.

The Procedure

Pigmented/Flat Lesions

The principle of this procedure is to remove colour from the pigmented, flat lesions. This is basically painless, and therefore no anaesthetic is needed at all. However, it is often wise to perform a test patch to ensure that pigmentation changes do not occur in the healed skin, and that the end result is that which the patient is expecting. Post operatively some slight reddening/blistering might occur, this lasts for approximately 48 hours and during this time the treated area needs to be kept dry. More than one procedure is often necessary for deeper or darker areas.

Raised areas (moles, warts, fleshy growths, skin tags etc.):

Raised moles etc. do not need colour removal generally, although even if they are slightly pigmented, the principle is the same - to flatten the area level with the normal skin, rather than surgical removal, removing the need for stitches and minimising any scar. On cosmetically important areas such as the face, this leads to major advantages over standard techniques, since the laser can bloodlessly and finely remove the area until it is just level with normal skin. Thus the lesion is not removed, simply made invisible (cosmetically neutral), or as near to that as is possible. Make-up can then be easily applied to completely hide the area if some slight colour difference is present with normal skin. This procedure may cause some discomfort, and therefore local anaesthetic is required. Because it is important to take less rather than more, sometimes a second treatment is required (less than 10% need this).

Post-operative care

Simply clean and apply vaseline 4 hourly, this is to avoid scab formation. If a scab does form as a natural dressing, it can be left. However, by cleaning regularly as described, healing usually occurs within 3 or 4 days, allowing make-up to be applied if required. The healing skin below will be red/pink for a variable period of time, up to around 1 month postoperatively.