Lumps & Bumps — Minor Surgical Excision

What counts as a lump worth removing?

Most skin and soft-tissue lumps are benign — lipomas (soft fatty lumps), epidermoid or sebaceous cysts, skin tags and the like. They are removed when they grow, ache, catch on clothing, become infected, or simply because you would rather not watch one enlarge. Just as importantly, removal answers the question a lump always carries: every specimen I excise is sent for histology, so the diagnosis is confirmed rather than assumed.

What the procedure involves

• Done in the clinic under local anaesthesia for most lumps; larger or deeper swellings are booked to a day surgery list
• A lipoma or cyst is removed complete with its capsule or sac — leaving the sac behind is the classic reason cysts recur
• An infected, abscessed cyst is drained first and excised later once the inflammation has settled; draining and definitive removal are different procedures
• The wound is closed to follow skin tension lines, and dissolving stitches are used where they make sense

What to expect afterwards

You go home immediately — driving is fine after most small excisions under local anaesthetic. Simple dressings for a few days, and any non-dissolving stitches come out at around one to two weeks. Every skin incision leaves some mark; placement and closure aim to keep it inconspicuous, and the histology result is reviewed with you at follow-up. Bleeding, infection and recurrence are uncommon but recognised.

When to seek assessment promptly

Most lumps are unhurried problems, but some features deserve an early opinion rather than observation: rapid growth, a lump that is fixed or deep to the muscle, one larger than about five centimetres, pain without infection, or overlying skin changes. Those features do not mean the worst — they mean the lump should be imaged and assessed properly before anyone reassures you.

Why see a surgeon for a small lump?

Because the operation is small only when the diagnosis is right. Assessment, excision, histology and follow-up sit in one pair of hands — the same one-stop approach that runs through the rest of my practice.