What are Actinic Keratosis, Skin Cancer and Sun Damage?
Actinic Keratosis, Skin Cancer and Sun Damage These lectures are not meant to replace your physician and are simply provided as a free educational service to all our visitors. If you feel that you have a skin problem, please see your doctor. Many people, especially redheads with freckles, blondes and those with a fair complexion who burn easily or tan poorly on sun exposure should be warned about the dangers of damage to the skin from sun exposure. Many people who fit into this category have Scotch-Irish-English or Scandinavian ancestry. Unfortunately, these warnings often come only after considerable damage has already been inflicted on the skin. The effect of sunlight over the years is to weather or to prematurely age the skin. While the brown splotches, thinning, wrinkling, drying, and exposure of many prominent tiny blood vessels at the surface in these sun exposed areas are of primarily cosmetic importance, certain scaling red spots, called ACTINIC KERATOSIS, are in some cases of
