Wart on finger? Wart on foot? What about those brown crumbly spots on your back? What about the "sunspots" on your face ( or are you calling them "skin cancers").
These are all skin lesions for which the best first treatment is generally liquid nitrogen, and this is a treatment Dr Mahony has been performing for twenty years.

The emphasis in a cosmetic medical practice is to get the best cosmetic result, and when it comes to liquid nitrogen cryotherapy it remains a shame that many patients experience a degree of overtreatment at the hands of their GP or dermatologist and consequently get a white mark at the site of their "freezing" treatment. 

I can imagine a busy GP or busier dermatologist having foremost in his or her mind the idea that they want to treat the target spot in such a way as to ensure it never comes back. That will provide a certain cure. And so I can imagine them thinking that they will give the target lesion a really good spray with the liquid nitrogen to ensure full destruction.

The problem with such an approach is that liquid nitrogen carries a significant risk of pigment loss or hypopigmentation if applied too generously. If we think about it we all have fair-skinned elderly friends or relatives whose faces are marred by multiple white spots caused by overly exuberant liquid nitrogen treatments to solar keratoses "sun spots" or "skin cancers" (only under rare circumstances is liquid nitrogen applied to a true skin cancer; the great majority of people having this treatment today are treating solar keratoses that are pre-cancerous).

The answer is to apply the liquid nitrogen carefully and lightly, then follow up the patient a few weeks later to check the result.Should this treatment fail to eradicate the lesion then a second application can be performed. This way, pigment loss is almost fully prevented and a better cosmetic outcome occurs.

Then again, if a patient has a true skin cancer one cannot titrate the treatment in this way. A range of options exist, and can be discussed in consultation.

Older patients with many "solar keratoses" are better treated with photodynamic therapy, which we do here at Peach. Go to the photodynamic therapy part of the treatment list.

We invite you to consult us for liquid nitrogen cryotherapy.