Skin Cancer
Skin cancers (neoplasms) are named after the type of skin cell from which they arise. Basal cell cancer originates from the lowest layer of the epidermis, and is the most common but least dangerous skin cancer. Squamous cell cancer originates from the middle layer, and is less common but more likely to spread and, if untreated, become fatal. Melanoma, which originates in the pigment-producing cells (melanocytes), is the least common, but most aggressive, most likely to spread and, if untreated, become fatal. Still, melanoma has one of the higher survival rates among major cancer, with over 75% of patients surviving 10 years in the UK during 2005-2007.
In the UK in 2010, 12,818 people were diagnosed with malignant melanoma, and about 100,000 people were diagnosed with non-melanoma skin cancer. There were 2,746 deaths from skin cancer, 2,203 from malignant melanoma and 546 from non-malignant melanoma. In the US in 2008, 59,695 people were diagnosed with melanomaa, and 8,623 people died from it.
Most cases are caused by over-exposure to UV rays from the sun or sunbeds.
Read more about Skin Cancer: Classification, Signs and Symptoms, Causes, Pathophysiology, Prevention, Management, Prognosis, Epidemiology
Famous quotes containing the words skin and/or cancer:
“You flicker. I cannot touch you.
I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns.
And it exhausts me to watch you
Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth.”
—Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)
“I wish more and more that health were studied half as much as disease is. Why, with all the endowment of research against cancer is no study made of those who are free from cancer? Why not inquire what foods they eat, what habits of body and mind they cultivate? And why never study animals in health and natural surroundings? why always sickened and in an environment of strangeness and artificiality?”
—Sarah N. Cleghorn (1976–1959)