When dermatologists remove skin cancers, they aim to remove as little healthy skin as possible while ensuring no cancer remains. In fact, Mohs surgery, a highly-specialized type of skin surgery removes skin cancers meticulously, layer-by-layer, in order to preserve healthy tissue and minimize scarring. Some skin cancers, however, including basal cell, squamous cell, melanoma and Merkel cell lymphoma can grow deep and/or wide and surgical removal results in unwanted deficits and scarring.
Roswell Park’s plastic and reconstructive surgeons provide several advanced techniques to repair and reconstruct skin and tissue affected by cancers of the skin and side effects from other cancer treatments such as radiation wounds, pressure ulcers and hardware exposure.
How we can help
Roswell Park’s plastic and reconstructive surgeons offer several advanced procedures to repair and restore deficits, reduce scarring, aid wound healing and improve appearance, including:
- Local flap surgery to reposition a flap of local tissue adjacent to the defect
- Free flap surgery, a complex procedure that transfers a flap of tissue and requires microsurgery expertise
- Skin grafting which uses skin taken from other parts on the body
- Fat grafting which uses fat taken from other parts of the body
- Tissue reconstruction for chronic radiation wounds or pressure ulcers
- Tissue repair to alleviate orthopedic hardware exposure
Same-day surgery
Our plastic and reconstructive surgeons can work with your cancer treatment team to plan for same-day reconstruction surgery, where cancer surgery and reconstruction surgery takes place the same day.