The most common form of human cancer is skin cancer. Over 1 million cases are reported annually in the US alone. Signs of skin cancer are to be carefully noted if the disease is to be treated at the earliest before spreading or metastasizing. The primary causes of skin cancer are excessive UV radiation either from sunlight or other artificial sources like tanning lamps, sunlamps, X rays etc. These radiation sources alter the genetic material in the skin cells producing mutations in them. This leads to the development of skin cancer in the body.

Skin cancer signs are more or less same across the board. Signs of skin cancer to look out for are; change in appearance of the skin for e.g. A change in skin complexion, new growths like moles and papilloma and sores that do not heal even after a long time. There are mainly three types of skin cancer i.e. basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma. Of these three types, melanoma is the most dangerous owing to the fact that it can metastasize to different parts of the body at a very rapid pace.

Skin cancer care involves a variety of treatment methods that are patient and condition specific. Usually for non melanoma cases, the treatment is fairly simple whereas for cases of melanoma skin cancer care involves more drastic treatment methods. The various techniques used to cure skin cancer are Curettage and Desiccation, Cryosurgery, Medicinal therapy, Micrographic surgery, surgical excision, Radiation therapy etc. Curettage is the method most preferred by dermatologists as this is the least invasive and for non melanoma cases, it is the most effective method. Desiccation involves using electric current to remove remaining cancer cells and stop bleeding. This method does not involve stitches and the skin heals by itself.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment