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Hello my name is Adrian Richards, I'm the Surgical Director of Aurora Clinics, and today
I'm going to be talking about removing skin lesions by Curettage.
So essentially skin lesions that need to be removed by surgery can either be removed via
an ellipse which is sort of removing an eye shaped area of skin, so that’s the lesion
in the middle with a sort of a triangle at either end. This removes the full thickness
of the skin and is usually used for lesions which go deeper into the skin. And if you’ve
got a lesion more on the surface of the skin, so more raised with less below the surface
of the skin, this is idea for curettage. So these are intradermal nevus which are domed
shaped moles on the face, so the typical sort of moles that your granny has the ones with
the hairs growing out. Some are slightly nodular skin coloured sort of pearly nodules on the
face, these are intradermal nevus and these can be easily curettaged, they don’t need
a formal incision as an ellipse damaging the deep layers of the skin, they can be sort
of scooped out like an ice cream scoop, and this is called curettage. So any lesions really
on the surface can be treated with curettage and this has the advantage that the deeper
layers of the skin are left intact to re-generate and it limits the size of the scar, removes
the lesion and doesn’t damage any normal surrounding skin. So curettage is very good
for some lesions, the advantages is it is performed under local anaesthetic, you have
a skin coloured dressing on normally for 24 hours following the removal and then there’s
a small scab in the area, and when the scab falls off, you need to let the scab fall off
by itself, normally about a week following the operation, and then you’re left with
a pink patch underneath the scab which will gradually fade in the weeks and months following
surgery. So in summary, curettage very good for benign
or non-cancerous lesions that are more superficial, that protrude from the skin, so they don’t
involve the deeper layers of the skin, more on the surface. Very simple technique to be
performed, and really if you do have one of these dome shaped intradermal nevus on the
face, best to get it treated earlier rather than later, because if we can remove it earlier
we minimise the scarring. So I hope that’s been interesting. If you’d
like more information about curettage or to find out whether you will be suitable, please
contact us either by ringing 01844 214 362 or by the website which is aurora-clinics.co.uk.
Thanks very much for watching the video and we hope to see you soon.