Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal Cell Carcinoma is a kind of skin cancer that is fairly common; it's most common in lighter skinned people than in darker, but it can show up in anyone's skin. The actual cancer itself looks like a keloid scar - it's usually a hard scarlike flat spot on the skin. Most men tend to get them on their face, neck, head and ears, and rarely on the arms. Women are likelier to get them on the legs as well, due to more sunlight exposure. This type of cancer spreads slowly, and is easily treatable, often with just tumor removal.

Like other forms of skin cancer, the primary cause of basal cell carcinoma is UV light interacting with skin cells and causing a mutation. Ordinary cells have limits on the number of times they can divide; cancer cells are notable in being an exception to this rule. So long as they can borrow nutrients from the body, they'll keep expanding and replicating.

Basal cell carcinoma, as mentioned above, is usually found as a scar like flat spot on the skin; it can also sometimes show up as a bump, or as a waxy or pearly irregularity in the skin. Most times, this type of skin cancer is easily treatable.

After the diagnosis is confirmed with a biopsy, where a sample of the affected skin is removed and tested, a skin cancer patient will have several options for treatment. Unlike other forms of cancer, most times removal of the carcinoma itself is sufficient, though tumors that have expanded or gone deeper into the skin, or into the bone, are problematic.

Most treatments for basal cell carcinoma can be handled as outpatient procedures at the clinic; there will usually be a local anesthetic, and while there's some pain in the procedure, and a bit of tenderness afterwards, it's a fairly routine process and not debilitating.

The most common type of treatment for this form of cancer is a Mohs micrographic surgery, where the physician removes the tumor, and a thin layer of surrounding tissue, runs them under a microscope to look for other signs of tumor cells and then repeats as necessary, until no more tumor cells are detected. This has a 98% cure rate, and preserves the largest array of intact flesh; it may be necessary to undergo some plastic surgery, though in most cases, the wound will heal normally.

If microscopy of the surrounding tissue while the patient is on the operating table is not available, standard lumpectomy surgery is often done instead - it's similar, but only has a 90% chance of succeeding rather than a 98% chance.

Other treatments include cutting the turmor out with a sharp, ring shaped instrument called a curette, and using a hot needle to destroy residual tumor cells, and the use of focused X-rays at the tumor to kill the cancer cells; X ray treatments are used in places where surgery is not an option, such as cancer cells that have dug down into the muscle or bone tissue underneath. Similarly, cryosurgery (like what's used to remove warts) or laser and photo-effective surgery are also used.

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