Hi,

If they removed the sore when your mum attended the referral appointment it would have been the dermatologist who did it. They are experts in this and although a biopsy is the only way to diagnose skin cancer, the dermatologist would have a reasonable idea if that's what it looked like. So it's not unusual for such a comment to be made but they can sometimes be wrong (my consultant thought I had a basal cell carcinoma recently but it turned out to be a benign lesion).

Hopefully your mum's is benign or it's a basal cell which is very treatable and doesn't spread. Good luck,

Angie (melanoma patient)