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Skin Cancer Spots
March 11, 2008 |
Vickie Warden recently went to see her Ophthalmologist for a routine eye exam.
But a small spot on her eyelid caught her doctor’s attention. “I went for a routine check after we moved
to another city and just to have my eyes checked and I mentioned that I had like
an ingrown hair on my eyelid. He set me
up to come back for a biopsy with a plastic surgeon,” says Vickie. Five days later her physician called and
told her that he had bad news and good news.
The bad news was that she had developed skin cancer on the fold of her
eyelid. Vickie says, “The good news is
it’s not melanoma it is basil cell carcinoma.”
That meant that Vickie’s cancer was not life-threatening and could be
removed with surgery. Her surgeon
replaced the cancerous skin on her left eyelid with the healthy skin from her
right. Now Vickie says, “It’s fine. I just watch out for different skin
lesions and have them checked.”
Physicians say Vickie’s case is not uncommon and that many people don’t realize
that skin cancer can develop on parts of the body that don’t receive regular sun
exposure. Dr. Michael Kim is a Board
Certified Plastic Surgeon who says, “If you have a risk factor at all or you are
concerned you should have your physician do a skin check on your entire body,
face, scalp, under the fingernails, feet bottom of the feet, soles of the feet,
around the anal area - those are all areas you can get melanoma.” Risk factors
for melanoma and other skin cancers include family history, fair skin
complexion, sun exposure and immune system deficiencies. People with fair skin and hair are three
to four times more likely to develop skin cancer. |
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