20 hours Ago By Rose Beer
Montrose Londo n in Belgravia is far from your average medical clinic. Tucked behind a towering townhouse minutes from Sloane Square and entered via a leafy private courtyard, this vast, interior-designed space looks more like an elegant members club than somewhere you’ll find surgeons, operating theatres, injectables and - the reason I turned up - London’s best mole mapping service. Because who wants to have their breast surgery or Botox under a strip light if you don’t have too? That said, Montrose is all about the substance: The clinic was founded by Dr Georgina Williams, Dr Shaimaa Jamshidi and Dr Jonathan Dunne, three plastic and reconstruction surgeons at the top of their game, all of whom split their time between Montrose and the capital's best nhs hospitals.
Dr Williams, a breast, face and neck specialist at Charing Cross and St Mary’s Hospitals, is also the guiding hand behind Maggie’s Centre’s breast reconstruction seminars. Dr. Jamshidi, with experience spanning St Mary’s to UCLH, specialises in plastic and reconstructive surgery at Chelsea and Westminster.
And Dr. Dunne, as the head of Imperial’s Skin Cancer Service, leads the charge on facial reconstruction, meaning that this team is as qualified as they come. Then there’s the technology.
Montrose is the only clinic in the UK with the Canfield Scientific IntelliStudio 3, a frighteningly clever AI-powered mole-mapping machine that triple-checks every last freckle. Doctors recommend that we get mole checks annually. And with good cause.
Melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, has seen a significant increase in the UK over recent years. According to Cancer Research UK , there are approximately 17,500 new cases annually, making it the fifth most common cancer in the country. Projections indicate that this number could rise to around 26,500 new cases per year by 2038-2040.
Early detection through regular mole checks is crucial for effective treatment. Cancer Research UK assesses that 86% of cases are preventable, yet since the 1990s, rates of melanoma have more than doubled, with a further increase of nearly 30% projected by 2040. Sure, mole checks aren’t the cheapest, (the full body mole mapping service at Montrose is £495 for a new patient and £395 follow-up), but as remarkably pale, heavily freckled individual who loves to spend time outside, and has had scares in the past, I see it as an obligatory and very reassuring part of my annual expenditure.
I spend more on servicing my car so why not myself. Taking no more than thirty minutes, clients - me in this case - are taken down to the basement where the state-of-the-art Canfield IntelliStudio3® with DermaGraphix® machine is housed. The only such unit in the UK, it features a proprietary Artificial Intelligence function which grades lesions according to its internal database.
The process is simple. I removed my clothes down to my underwear and stood on an automatic turntable in front of a camera. Multiple high-resolution images are taken and lesions are mapped (I - for your information - had no less than 159), and those of concern are flagged so that specialist skin cancer nurse Ciara Vereker could double check them with a handheld dermatoscope linked to the main system.
The images were then magnified 200x and saved. Within half an hour we were done and I - happily - had the all-clear. But it doesn’t stop there.
For clients with suspect lesions, Montrose can arrange special removal on the same day, with samples sent off for histology to confirm complete excision. The entire procedure is designed to be as efficient and rigorous as they come, which is just what you want when your future health is at stake. (montroseclinics.
com).
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