This obviously makes the disease more ominous and life threatening. A definitive diagnosis as to the type of cancer cannot usually be made by visual examination alone, but a suspected lesion will be excised and submitted to a skin pathologist for diagnosis. Skin cancer is not a laughable matter and prompt diagnosis and treatment may prevent local mutilation, substantial suffering or early death. Local surgery is not the only treatment for skin cancer, although it is the most common. Cryosurgery or destruction of the lesion by freezing.
Radiation therapy is very effective in treating basal cell cancer.
Laser surgery, rarely used. A surgical procedure recently developed and known as Mohs Micrographic surgery, removes the cancer totally while preserving most of the bordering healthy tissue. In this procedure the physician removes sequentially very thin layers of tumor. Each removed layer is immediately examined under the microscope, until the site is tumor free. The easiest and most effective measure to prevent the most common types of skin cancer is to avoid or reduce the dangerous ultra-violet sun exposure.