Dermatologist Mihaela Leventer raises an alarm when she says that, at European level, the number of people diagnosed with skin cancer has increased, but Romania is facing a vice of reporting this type of cancer.
“It is not mentioned in the disease codes, there is no difference between melanoma and other skin cancers, so we have the wrong coding. In addition, between the time of hospitalization and the time of the histopathological report, which certifies the diagnosis, it can take 3-4 weeks and no one completes the hospitalization data with the laboratory ones. Then, skin cancers are treated under other diagnoses. For example, ulcerated lesion, over-infected lesion, other skin diseases, without an exact report and hence the treatment defect. Everyone does what they believe, what they know. Skin cancer develops in sight, develops uniformly. Completely removed the tumor with all the roots can be cured “, explains the specialist.
Unfortunately, classic surgery does not guarantee that the tumor is completely removed by the roots, so the patient wakes up that the disease recurs. A safe method is Mohs microsurgery, which, however, is not free even for insured patients. “The costs start at 4,600 lei and the larger the tumor and the more investigation it requires, so another stage and another stage, 1,300 lei are added. In general, around 1,000-2,000 euros, but the real cost is somewhere higher “, added Dr. Mihaela Leventer.
Dr. Leventer said the Mohs procedure has been practiced in the United States for 60 years and in Europe for more than 40 years. According to specialists, Mohs microsurgery is the most advanced and safe method of treating skin cancer.
“The method, which consists of step-by-step histological analysis during the operation, is unique in accuracy and gives a 99% chance of cure, the highest of all possible methods. The advantage of this procedure is that it can eradicate the tumor by accurately preserving healthy tissue, all under local anesthesia and on the same day of surgery. The patient waits until the histological analysis performed from the frozen piece at Cryostat, confirms that the tissue is clean of cancer cells and can proceed to close the defect resulting from excision and skin reconstruction according to the rules of cosmetic surgery. Combining histological research of tumor margins and depth, the method offers the operated patient the certainty of the diagnosis during the intervention and the greatest chance of cure without recurrence “, explains Dr. Leventer.
Dumitru Paraschivescu, 67, from Tulcea, discovered 12 years ago that he suffers from basal cell carcinoma, a form of skin cancer. “I was at the dentist when the dentist noticed that I had a nose injury and asked me if he could take a biopsy. I told him to take it. After a while, he called me and told me that he had bad news for me, that I had basal cell carcinoma. It was the first time I had heard of such a thing. I went to a hospital in Bucharest, where I was told it was in its infancy. He removed the lesion from me and transplanted my skin from my ears to my nose. Unfortunately, the disease recurred and I had surgery again. In 2012, within 5 months, I had six interventions. In total, I did 33 interventions, after which I went to a hospital in Constanța, where, in total, I did 11 electro-cauterizations. But I still didn’t escape. This spring, I went to the center of Dr. Leventer, where I had a Mohs operation and I completely got rid of the tumor “, Mr. Paraschivescu confessed to us.
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