Any kind of cancer is frightening and potentially deadly, but skin cancer is not only preventable, but also detectable and easily treated in its early stages. If skin cancer is detected in its earliest stages, you may be able to remove it completely through outpatient surgery without having to undergo any further radiation or chemotherapy. If you adopt behavior which reduces risk factors for skin cancer, and learn to detect skin cancer warning signs, skin cancer will not cause you unnecessary suffering.

Risk factor is a term used for factors associated with higher instances of contracting a disease. The exact cause-effect relationship is not scientifically proven, although reasons are often hypothesized and widely assumed to be true, but the statistical relationship between risk factors and contracting a specific disease is proven.

It may already be too late for you to avoid one of the risk factors for skin cancer, which is having had a blistering sunburn at any point in your life. This is specifically a sunburn severe enough to cause blisters in the skin due to overexposure to UV radiation. Avoid severe sunburns in the future whether you have ever suffered one or not, and avoid exposing yourself to too much sun in general. If you have children, you can greatly reduce their risk of skin cancer in the future making sure they do not suffer a severe sunburn during their childhood.

 

 

Our bodies are made up of individual cells which are designed to reproduce, allowing for growth and an extended, healthy life. By serving their purpose, reproducing, and dying, they leave new, fresh, and fully functional cells to continue to perform bodily functions. After many cycles of reproduction, due to natural cellular degeneration over time or outside influences causing mutations, some cells fail to reproduce and die at the normal rate, and can start reproducing too much and form growths. These growths may be benign, or they may be malignant, in which case they are referred to as cancerous tumors. Ultraviolet radiation can cause skin cells to mutate and create growths, some benign and some malignant. What is a benign growth and what is skin cancer is a question you should ask your doctor.

If you have a rash, lump, or wound that doesn’t seem to heal, this could be a cancerous tumor. Rather than ignoring these symptoms, you should see a doctor and find out what they are, although something like this should be an obvious reason to talk to a doctor regardless of the cancer risk.

The symptoms mentioned above may indicate squamous or basal cell carcinoma, which are the two most common nonmelanoma skin cancers. Squamous cells are the top layer of the skin. They are round and flat and protect against the environment. Beneath this layer of cells are the basal cells, which can also form tumors.