Minor Surgical Procedures

There are several conditions that require minor surgical procedures to be conducted by medical practitioners. Instead of paying a large bill for minor surgical procedures after seeking help at a hospital, our medical practitioners are capable of performing these at Dr. CG Du Plessis & Partners.

 We perform the following minor surgical procedures in our rooms under local anaesthetic, depending on size and extent of the lesion:

• Suturing / stitching of wounds

• Removal of warts / molluscum, sunspots etc, either surgically or burning it off with liquid nitrogen

• Removal of moles or other small skin lesions

• Drainage of abscesses

• Biopsy of any suspicious skin lesions

Other Procedures include:

Some lesions need to be removed because they pose cancer risks or because of aesthetic reasons. With regards to the removal of specific lesions such as moles, sun spots or age spots, warts and skin tags, there are various ways to deal with these problems. We can remove them surgically, under local anaesthesia and usually close the wound with sutures (stitches).

Certain lesions like sun spots and warts can be burned off, either with liquid nitrogen or by electrocautery, which makes use of a heated electrode to burn off the lesion.  They require more than one application, more or less one week apart and warts may require multiple applications. They will then come loose, fall off and heal on their own.

There are also new creams and powders that work very well to remove pre-cancerous sun spots as well as warts, some of which give you an even better appearance than having them removed surgically. You do need to apply them regularly, according to the instructions of each product and it may take 4-6 weeks to clear the lesion.  The benefit is that you can do this at home and treat multiple lesions at the same time.

Some lesions cannot be removed if they look suspicious of cancer and need to be biopsied which involves taking a small sample and sending it to the laboratory for testing.  This is done under local anaesthesia and usually will not require any sutures.

The following lesions can be removed or biopsied:

• Skin tags – surgically or by electrocautery

• Warts –  using the new creams or powders, via liquid nitrogen or electrocautery

• Moles and naevi or suspicious looking lesions, need biopsies or to be removed surgically

• Sebaceous cysts