Skin Surgery & Biopsies: Mole Assessment
Many people have lesions on their skin. People have various terms for such lesions. Some have been present for years, some are new lesions. People may describe them as moles, growths, warts, brown spots, liver spots or blemishes. None of these terms are medically accurate.
Thus an accurate diagnosis is often required. This is especially the case when a skin lesion is new or changing as many such lesions can be cancerous. For example the dreaded melanoma has a much better prognosis if diagnosed early. Unfortunately many people ignore such lesions until they cause symptoms such as bleeding or itching at which stage the prognosis is much worse. Don’t hesitate in getting a lesion checked.
In Ireland melanoma has different presentations. Most appear the classic brown or black but frequently the melanoma may be red or pink or white or a variety of colours. If a lesion is new or changing it needs to be assessed urgently.
Even lesions that have been present for a longer time need to checked in order to establish if their nature is benign. Never feel that you are wasting your doctors’ time by getting a lesion checked.
Over the past 20 years Dr. Murphy has performed thousands of skin
biopsies.
