Skin Cancer

Please contact Dr. Robinson’s office to access the Cutaneous Surgery Clinical Referral Line, ensuring expedited service.

Basal Cell
& Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Basal cell skin cancer is only locally invasive and only in very rare cases has the capacity to metastasize or spread elsewhere in the body. Squamous cell skin cancer has a greater chance of growing more rapidly and more deeply as well as metastasizing. Surgical removal is curative, although liquid nitrogen, topical chemotherapy creams, and radiation can also be used to treat these cancers. Dr. Robinson offers traditional plastic surgical removal, but also a Total Margin Control (TOMAC) technique that has a lower risk of recurrence than with traditional techniques.

Melanoma

Malignant melanoma is the most worrisome of the skin cancers, and has the capacity to metastasize to other organs in the body and cause death. Treatment depends on the tumour’s thickness, microscopic characteristics, location on the body, and patient factors such as age and medical condition. Surgical removal of the tumour is combined with some or all of the following:

• wound closure techniques (direct closure, skin flaps, skin grafts)
• sampling the lymph nodes (sentinel lymph node biopsy)
• chemotherapy
• immune therapy medications
• targeted therapy medications
• radiotherapy