How Does Skin Cancer Develop?

Video Transcript

"Hi this is Dr. David Cathcart from Heartland Regional Medical Center in St. Joseph, Missouri. And we're going to talk about skin cancer. Skin cancer like many other cancers are caused by free radical formations. Free radical formations those are the things that occur as a natural byproduct. But they also are caused by things like ionizing radiation. Ionizing radiation most commonly occurs from the sun. So as the sun as the sun's rays beat down on our skin they can cause these changes to occur at the cellular level of skin and cause abnormal growth of cells. Typically what you see with skin cancer is a lump. The most common thing that you see is a lump that has maybe multiple colors. I tend to call them the patriotic lesions or red, white and blue. Or they'll have irregular edges so that's really hard to see where the bump starts and where it stops. Or where discoloration starts and stops. Sometimes it'll have raised pearly borders which those are frequently caused or called basal cell, basal cell cancers. Basal cell cancers, squamous cell cancers are various types of skin cancers mostly are not too dangerous as if you catch them early they can be removed before they start to spread to other parts of the body. Thanks for letting me talk to you about skin cancers. This is Dr. David Cathcart."