.The story of President Reagan's skin cancer is all too common and is a typical example of how skin cancer may behave. In 1987, while Ronald Reagan was President, some of the best Board Certified Plastic Surgeons in the country "removed" a basal-cell cancer and sewed the nose of then-President Reagan. The Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons thought they did their best and thought they got the entire tumor. But President Reagan was one of the 10-20% failure rate that plastic surgeons have. Within six months after the Board-Certified Plastic Surgeons' attempt, the cancer returned. This time Reagan's primary doctors did some research and discovered what Dr. Frederick Mohs had known for 50 years: Skin cancers that form in areas of high risk for recurrence are cured most reliably with horizontal-section Mohs Surgery. It was then that the rest of Mr. Reagan's tumor was accurately mapped, removed and cured by a dermatologist who was a member of the American COLLEGE of Mohs Surgery (beware the amazingly similarly-named group calling themselves American SOCIETY of Mohs Surgery - there may be quite a difference). The tumor never returned again; it was a complete cure. President Bush Sr. later developed a skin cancer. Mr. Bush Sr. did not go to the plastic surgeons for his treatment; instead he went directly for Mohs Surgery by a member of the American COLLEGE of Mohs Surgery. It appears that this lesson was well-learned in Washington, D.C.

......We will now be moving our discussion of Mohs Surgery from the White House in Washington, D.C., to television in New York. Regis Philbin of television's Live with Regis and Kathie Lee had Mohs Surgery (again performed by member of the American COLLEGE of Mohs Surgery) on two separate skin cancers. Here are some of Regis' thoughts: "I lived in California for years and loved getting a tan. . . . When I used sunscreen, I never put it on my hands. . . . My first cancer, a squamous-cell cancer, was on my hand. . . . The treatment was done in the doctor's office and took about two hours. The carcinoma was taken off with . . . Mohs . . . in which every layer of the skin is studied under the microscope to see if it contains cancer cells. The surgery continues until it gets to a layer that is completely free of cancer. When the Mohs Surgeon said the cancer was all out and would not come back, I was perfectly relieved. In fact, I didn't give a second thought to the possibility of future trouble. . . . My second cancer was on my face, however, this one was so big . . . that the doctor had to do a skin flap. A tremendous number of stitches was needed. . . . I was certainly happy to be back on the show four days after the treatment looking pretty much the way I always do. That's how good the surgery was. It took a while for the scar to disappear completely, though I was able to hide it in the meantime with make-up. It's clean as a whistle now; you can't see a trace of it." - Regis Philbin of Live with Regis and Kathy Lee