Can a Mole Be Removed Without Leaving a Scar?

Scalpel Sculpting is a three-minute, simple way to remove moles (often called "beauty marks," or "birth marks.") without the need for cutting deeply into the skin or placing any stitches.

Most moles are benign overgrowths of pigment cells. Typically, they begin as flat brown spots and with time begin to grow and stick out above the skin surface. That's when they come to most people's attention, especially when they are on the highly visible areas of the face, neck and especially on the cheeks and near the eyes.

At one time surgeons cut them out down to their roots, a surgical procedure that required stitches and bandages and often left stitch tracks and unsightly scars and irregularities in pigmentation.

Today, instead of cutting deeply into the skin, cosmetic dermasurgeons angle the scalpel horizontally beneath the projecting portion of the mole to "sculpt" it away. The wound is then covered with a drop of liquid bandage and left to heal by itself. It usually takes seven to ten days for the crust to fall off and a few weeks for the color to fade toward normal.

Patients can return to work immediately following the procedure. The risk of any kind of scarring with this method are very small, since no deep cutting is performed. In the course of healing, normal skin from the surrounding area generally grows over the wound, which lends to a very nice color match in most cases.

It is extremely important that the removed surface specimen be sent to the laboratory to be one thousand percent certain that the mole being removed for cosmetic purposes is nothing more than just a benign birth mark and not a hidden melanoma, a very serious form of skin cancer.

For this reason, I strongly advise against moles being removed by destructive methods, such as burning, cauterizing, acids, and lasers. These methods destroy the removed specimen and do not permit a laboratory evaluation.

Sometimes. If the mole is raised and flesh toned, I will perform a shave excision followed by low energy cautery. This typically results in no scarring, with a small chance of recurrence. There is always a small risk of a noticeable scar anytime the skin is incised.

The short answer is no.  However, some techniques are more likely to leave worse scars than others.  It is important for you to see an experienced plastic surgeon.