Scraping and burning procedures usually leave flat but white scars. Sometimes the chest is prone to develop raised scars and if this over healing (your body may produce too much collagen as a response to healing and is referred to as hypetrophic or keloidal scarring) occurs, you may see that the scar is red, raised and tender or itchy for a few months to years. The same applies to excisional (surgical removal) surgery. Usually the surgery involves removing the skin cancer in the shape of an ellipse which is longer than wide. This is to prevent raised bumps on the ends of the scar. The excision may result in a beautiful fine line which can look much better than the flat white scar from the scraping procedure, but if the excision heals with a raised or spread scar then it will look worse than the scraping discoloration. The most important aspect is to make sure that the level of pathology in your biopsies indicate that the scraping procedure is adequate for the disease. Your dermatologist can help advise you of this.
Skin cancer removal
Ronald Shelton, MD answers: Best way to remove squamous cells?
I just received the biopsy report on 3 areas from my chest. The locations are: 1 at the top of my cleavage, 1 to the left center of my cleavage and 1 centered just below my collar bone. These all came back as squamous cells. My dermatologist wants to scrape more and feels that this would be much better than a Moh's surgery. The location of these has gotten me very concerned about the appearance afterwards. What other treatments can you advise that would leave me with the least amount of scarring?
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