Mole Removal Without Obvious Scarring

This patient was recently seen for follow-up after having a mole removed from her face. I just thought she was a great example of facial mole removal. As you can see, she had a mole in the middle portion of her left cheek that she wanted removed for cosmetic purposes. As you can also tell, she has ethnic type skin that is darker and thicker. This type of skin can often be more difficult to work with when it comes to plastic surgery of the face. This is because darker, ethnic skin does not heal as well as whiter, thinner skin. In general, ethnic skin can result in more prominent scars. Because of this, patients with darker, ethnic skin should seek out experts in plastic surgery of the face when considering removal of moles like this one. This particular patient consulted with my office because of our expert experience and dedication in the field of cosmetic facial surgery. After all, she wanted to have the mole removed, but did not want to have a real obvious sign (or scar) as a result of the surgery. I ended up removing the mole under only local anesthesia (numbing medication injected under the skin) in our office procedure room. Using meticulous surgical technique, the mole was cut out and the surrounding skin used to close the defect, or hole. This included using proper eversion of the skin edges. This term, eversion, refers to lifting the skin edges up such that they look almost heaped up after the closure is complete. This is done to give the skin a natural laxity so when the scar stretches during the healing process there is minimal pulling on the skin. This translates into less scar visibility from the mole removal. As you can see in the larger photo provided here, there is barely any sign of the mole removal nearly 4-5 months after the minor surgery. Go ahead and look even closer. You can probably make out a very fine hint of where I made the cut to remove the mole, but it is certainly not real obvious. And keep in mind this patient has the thicker, darker ethnic skin that is typically more challenging when it comes to facial plastic surgery. But this is the goal whenever I perform mole removal on any particular patient – minimal signs of me having been there. If you have a facial mole or moles that you would like to have removed, do not hesitate in contacting my office today to discuss your options!