I had a mole removed that my wife thought was changing, it was just about the size of an eraser. My primary care doctor removed it and sent it off to the lab. The lab report came back as a moderate to severe atypical mole, margins were clear but by only .01mm. Path report suggests re-excision for wider margins. My primary care called with the results and said to come back when the current incision healed so he could remove more to be safe. This made me worry about the rest of my body so I scheduled an appointment with a dermatologist for a full body check and 2nd opinion. My primary care will check but I figure the dermatologist has a better chance of spotting something that looks funny since he trained in that filed. He didn’t see anything else but wanted to see the lab report from the mole biopsy. I sent the dermatologist the report and he called me back and confirmed yes it should be excised to get 5mm clear margins.
Here’s my debate, should I have the dermatologist do the re-excision or my primary care that did the original biopsy? As long as they both send the new section into the lab and it comes back with adequate margins does it matter? I know the dermatologist does this more frequently but he even said self checks are the best way to prevent melanoma and I would bet they will send off the biopsy to LabCorp or an affiliate like my primary does.
I realize this is no where as serious as the majority of the posts on this site, but I want to make an educated decision but I don’t see an obvious clear winner. Any thoughts would be appreciated!
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