Skin Cancer Breakthroughs

What You Need To Know About Skin Cancer

To associate the suns rays and contracting cancer is a difficult combination to take in. For many years, especially with cheap flights and more leisure time available, people who were trapped in a grey sunless city life, would be grateful of the opportunity to spend a few days exposing their bodies to the sun's rays. Sometimes they would look around and see all this lucky people who live in a sunny climate all year round and ask themselves" Why are they keeping their skin covered, why are they all wearing hats? Don't they want a tan?"

Later they would return to the familiar grey skies and their family, friends and colleagues to show off their sun tans and enjoy the few moments of being the envy of all.

Only a few years ago did people become aware of the dangers of skin cancer, and in the last few years the problem has become more acute. This may possibly be as result of holes in the ozone layer allowing much more powerful sun rays as well as ultraviolet radiation in the atmosphere to filter through.

Skin cancer is a malignant growth that typically forms on the epidermis or outer skin layer and is generally caused by repeated burns to the skin caused by the sun's rays or extended exposure to the sun over time. In the United States alone, more than one hundred thousand skin cancer cases are diagnosed annually with the mortality rates reaching into the thousands. Melanoma skin cancers are the least diagnosed yet the highest percentages of mortalities come from this form of skin cancer

There is no more experience for parents of young children that to see they run around naked or almost naked on a beautiful sunny day on the sea shore. If parents were only partially aware of how much danger they were exposing their children to, they would be horrified. The effects of being exposed to the suns rays are much more profound among young children, although it may not manifest itself for many years to come.

In recent years increased public awareness to the dangers of skin cancer have caused the public to become more responsible in exposing themselves and their loved ones to the latent dangers of over exposure to the suns rays, as well as covering themselves and their children in sun block to prevent the harmful rays for burning their skin. People who work outdoors constantly wear basic clothing as protection, especially hats.

Skin cancer if it arrives comes in three forms:

Melanoma: Whilst the less common form of cancer, can be fatal. Developing through skin melanocytes, it first shows up as an irregularly shaped pigmented lesion. If diagnosed and treated early in its development it can be cured. If not picked up, melanomas can spread rapidly and can prove fatal.
Squamous Cell Carcinoma: Usually manifests in the particular part of the body which has been excessively exposed to the sun. Squamous cell carcinoma appears as a red bump or an ulceration of the skin which appears not to heal. If left untreated. The cancer can spread to lymph nodes within the affected area and throughout the patient's body.
Basal cell skin cancer: By far the most common type of cancer, Basal cell skin cancer usually appears as a beige colored small bump. Thankfully this form of cancer does not spread and is unlikely to be fatal, unless totally disregarded. Basal cell skin cancer is the most common skin cancer affecting mostly people who have lighter skins, and people with freckles are very susceptible to Basal cell skin cancer.

The symptoms of skin cancer in general are based around the growth on the skin. Any signs of an unusual skin growth on any part of the body should be all that is needed to justify an immediate visit to your family doctor or health clinic. Some other general symptoms can be sore throats, tiredness and a sudden loss of weight

If the treating doctor has any fear that the growth may be cancerous, they will order an immediate skin biopsy to be carried out. This is where some tissue is removed from the suspicious growth and sent for examination. The examination will attempt to ascertain if the growth is cancerous or not. If sadly, the growth is found to be cancerous, the laboratory will provide a diagnosis. This should be which form of skin cancer is present.

Armed with this information, and dependent on the skin cancer's location and extent, the treating doctor will then decide which of the many treatment options to take. These will include curettage, (surgery to remove tissue or growths by scraping with a curette) radiation therapy and chemotherapy. The treatment chosen is dependent upon the type of skin cancer that is diagnosed.

Cancer