Cost Effectiveness of Mohs Surgery

In 2008 Lear, Murray and colleagues published the first Canadian cost-analysis study of Mohs surgery in the Journal of Cutaneous Medicine and Surgery. This study compared the cost of Mohs surgery to radiation therapy for complex cancers in critical anatomic sites and showed Mohs surgery to be more cost effective than radiation therapy.

It is also clear that non-Mohs treatments carry 5-year recurrence rates of up to 10-12% for common skin cancers and up to 50% recurrence rates for rarer skin cancers. When the cost of additional procedures for removal of recurrent cancers or for re-excision (in cases where part of the cancer is missed in the first excision) is considered, MMS becomes much more cost effective than more traditional therapy.

The fact that MMS occurs in a single procedure and affords both the highest cure rate and the least destruction of uninvolved tissue, MMS is the treatment procedure that most effectively minimizes the physical and emotional trauma to the patient.