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Eyelid Skin Cancer Surgery And Eyelid Reconstruction

The eyelid skin is the thinnest skin on the body with significant long-term exposure to sunlight. That makes the eyelids one of the most common locations on the body to develop benign and cancerous skin lesions. Luckily, most eye fold lesions are benign and easily treated by simple excision. The most common eyelid cancer types are basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma. The symptoms could be a subtle bump, non-resolving “sty” or lesion, lash loss, or ulcerating non-healing nodule. presence of a nodule or lesion on the eye fold that grows, bleed or ulcerates should be evaluated. The diagnosis is made by examination and biopsy.

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Dr. Taban performing skin cancer surgery on his own father.

Skin Cancer Overview

Basal cell carcinomas are the most common eyelid skin cancer. They grow slowly and steadily but don’t metastasize. Squamous cell carcinomas are the second most common eyelid skin cancer and behave similarly to basal cell carcinomas but are usually more aggressive. Melanoma of the eye fold skin are very rare but have the same prognosis as other body melanomas and need to be treated aggressively.

Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal cell tumors represent the ninety percent of eyelid tumors. These skin cancers grow slowly over months and years. They most often appear as a pearly nodule that eventually starts to break down and ulcerate. Despite being a cancer, these tumors don’t spread to distant areas but rather just continue to grow and infiltrate the surrounding tissue. They typically can be cured by simple excision followed by reconstruction of the defect left behind after the tumor removal.

Squamous Cell Carcinoma and Melanoma

These types of tumors occur much less common but are more aggressive and require more involved care to ensure complete treatment. Again, primary treatment involves removing the tumor, but care must also be taken to ensure the tumor has not spread anywhere, causing larger health problems. Your surgeon will help coordinate this as part of your treatment depending on the size and circumstances of the tumor at presentation.

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Video showing woman undergoing eyelid cholesterol deposit (xanthalasma or xanthoma) removal along with upper blepharoplasty.

Article Published by Los Angeles’ Dr. Taban about Eyelid Reconstruction Using Bilobed Flap

Treatment (Eyelid skin cancer surgery, Mohs Eyelid Reconstruction)

The goals of skin cancer surgery are three fold: 1) To remove all the tumor, 2) To reconstruct an eyelid where it can properly close and protect the eyeball, and 3) To achieve the best cosmetic surgery outcome.  An eye fold skin cancer surgeon specialist needs to understand these important goals.
Eyelid cancers are usually slow growing, however, because there is very little eye fold tissue to begin with, it is best to excise the lesion as soon as possible. It is often a two-step process, done in conjunction with a Mohs dermatologic surgeon who ensures that the entire tumor has been excised at a microscopic level. Mohs’ surgery is a procedure developed specifically to remove a cancerous skin lesion, using visualization under a microscope to carefully remove the cancerous lesion layer by layer until all margins are free of any cancerous tissue. This technique spares as much of the surrounding healthy tissue as possible. Many of these eye fold defects can be sutured together directly, but many others may require more complex reconstructions. In many of these more complex cases, Dr. Taban may need to use adjacent tissues (what we call ”flaps”), or transfer of skin from other parts of the eye fold face or body (what we call “skin grafts”) to complete the reconstruction. Some of these more complex reconstructions may require more than one operation to complete (what we call “staged reconstruction”).

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68 year old male, with large right eyelid and nose defect after Mohs surgery to remove basal cell carcinoma, underwent eyelid reconstruction. Before and 6 weeks after eyelid skin cancer reconstruction photos are shown.
53 year old female, underwent left lower eyelid skin cancer reconstruction after Mohs surgery to remove basal cell carcinoma.

Before & After Photos

*See disclaimer below
Before (left) lower eyelid cancer after Mohs removal with large defect and 3 months after (right) lower eyelid cancer reconstruction.
Before and one week after removal of large left lower eyelid lesion at the lash line.
Before (left) and after (right) surgery for large eyelid xanthalasma (eyes closed)
Before (left) and after (right) LEFT lower eye fold basal cell carcinoma resection and reconstruction.
Before (left), intraop (middle) and 3-months after (far right) photos of a patient with large left lower eyelid skin cancer Mohs resection and reconstruction.
Before (left) 65 year old female with right lower lid basal cell carcinoma. (Middle) Immediately after Mohs procedure to remove right lower eye fold cancer. After (right) 2 months after right lower eyelid cancer reconstruction.
Before (left) 84 year old male with right eye fold basal cell carcinoma. (Middle) Immediately after right lower lid skin cancer removal. After (right) 2 months after right lower eyelid cancer reconstruction.
Before (left) 70+ year old female, with left lower eyelid retraction from previous skin cancer surgery. After (right) 3 months after total left lower eyelid reconstruction, retraction surgery, with skin graft.
Before (left) 56-year-old male with large eyelid defect following eyelid basal cell carcinoma removal. After (right) reconstruction surgery using multiple flaps for natural-looking results and preserved function.
68 year old male, with large right eyelid and nose defect after Mohs surgery to remove basal cell carcinoma, underwent eyelid reconstruction. Before and 6 weeks after eyelid skin cancer reconstruction photos are shown.

CONTACT THE LOS ANGELES OCULOPLASTIC EXPERT

Dr. Taban is one of the leading oculoplastic eye surgery doctors in the LA region. Contact us via online support form, or via telephone at: (310) 278-1836

*Disclaimer: Results vary from patient to patient. Results are not guaranteed.