Biopsy After Freezing Mole?

More commonly, seborrheic keratoses, or "age spots" are frozen, while nevi (moles) are biopsied.  Perhaps your physician froze a completely benign brown velvety seborrheic keratosis and not a mole.  Many times, it is dificult for a non-physician, or non-dermatologist to tell the difference.

Please see my blog post on the Kraussderm website to read about seborrheic keratoses.

 

Most likely if your mole was treated with cryotherapy, it was not a mole at all but a seborrheic keratosis. This would be especially true if the mole was treated by a dermatologist. Many lay people will call a seborrheic keratosis a mole when it is not. We also hear them described as warts ( the British incidentally call them seborrheic warts). If there is a question whether a particular lesion is a seborrheic keratosis or mole, the use of a dermatoscope can easily differentiate the two.

Freezing tissue distorts the its histology so much that it usually can make identification very problematic. However, if there is a portion of the lesion still present after a month or so, you can always have this re-biopsied and submitted. Any anxiety over this lesion should be alleviated at that point.