Hi. I was reading about skin cancer and to do a biopsy a lot of times they use this thing called a "punch biopsy", it's a round cookie-cutter type instrument and they kind of twist (by hand) it down on the suspected lesion and make a circular "core" of skin which they then remove for biopsy. It got me thinking about scar removal because from what I've read the site heals with minimum scarring-if the wound is small it may not require stitches, if bigger it might require a couple. It is meant to leave less scarring than excision though.

I was just wondering why you never hear of them using this instrument to remove scars? It seems way better than cutting the scar out and leaving a big red scar in it's place. It seems it is only used for biopsies though. From what I can tell it seems a viable option for scar removal. Procedure is very quick and easy, just like excision but using this instrument instead of a scalpel. I've had excision and I wasn't really happy with the results. I still have a couple of little "bumps" that I don't want to have removed by excision again as it will make them look worse. I don't know why they don't use this instrument on scars, or maybe they do? Have never heard or been offered this option though. Any thoughts?

Okay, I have quite a few moles and had one removed in high school by it being punched out by one of those tiny cookie cutters, it left a weird looking scar. Where they punched the skin out, what developed is what looks like scar tissue, it's a circle and slightly reddish, does not look like my skin and is quite obvious it's a scar. It's been that way for 8+ years. The nex time I had a mole removed, I went to a plastic surgeon instead of my dermatologist to have it removed and it left no scar. So it's not used on scars probably because they usually leaves scars like it did for me.

Thanks for your experience Mel. Was it a big mole though? Did they close it with stitches? Everything I've read says it leaves less scarring than excision but then that may be because I'm reading about skin cancer and if they do excision it's to remove the whole lesion and surrounding tissue so will leave a bigger scar.

Sorry you were left with a scar

Scarring on the body and face is very different. I assume the punched out mole wasn't on the face? The scar would've probably been quite different if it had been in the facial area.

I think the reason punch biopsies leave a smaller scar is because the removed area is much smaller than with mole excision. It might also be just the uppermost part of the mole and not really reach very deep at all. The area excised around the mole is something like 0.5 cm in every direction on the face, and 1-2 cm on the body (this is probably incorrect, as I can't remember and can't be bothered to check). And if it's a cancerous growth, the area excised is much larger than that.

Scalpel excisions work much better on acne scars than punch excisions.

Actually this is exactly what they use to remove ice pick scars. I've had this done a few times, and the results have been anything from great to disastrous.

Thanks for the input guys. If I ever go to another derm I'll ask them for their opinion on this and post what they say. I'm always on the lookout for ways to remove some scars I have-well not remove but "revise" but it's just taking the chance on making it worse. Excision would have worked great but for some reason the whole scars weren't removed-either the surgeon missed part of the scars or two little bumps were left from the actual excision. Had fraxel as well think it helped the redness but that's it. On the whole NOT worth the hundreds I have paid over the years but I keep hoping and would pay out any money again if I thought I could get something that works.