Possible skin cancer

[whatareyouwaitingforr]

Not me, my mum.

She’s been to a dermatology appointment this morning and been told she has two patches of what may be “mild” skin cancer (I’m assuming that means BCC over SCC). She’s having biopsies in clinic today.

Just wondering what to really expect now? What happens from here? I know that if it’s BCC there’s no real rush to get it taken off, but just any sort of guidance would be useful

My friend had this twice.

Two cancerous growths sort of had to be “dug out” of her legs It was a bit sore but healed up fine.

The other arose several years later - two patches were on her neck and face. She had some chemotherapy cream to clear them up, seemed to work fine.

The bigger impact is she is following advice to stay out of the sun! So no more sunbathing in Spain/the garden every year.

She was a huge fan of having “a healthy looking suntan” and used sunlamps and sun beds in her use - probably not safely.

Now she treats her skin very gently.

And she’s stopped telling me how pale I look (I have almost complete vitiligo on my arms and legs so I literally cannot tan and I have to be extremely careful!)

She, for some reason, believes that SPF gives you skin cancer. I have tried and tried over the years but she doesn’t listen! So I’ll leave this to her and her derm

I was at the dermatologist today. I have two lesions which have not healed for about 8 months. The first was suspected SCC on my ear and I had a biopsy two weeks ago. Apparently it will take 6 weeks for the results.
The second she looked at today and said " that's definitely a BCC. She burned it off with liquid nitrogen there and then. I have to go back in three months when they may repeat the process. No other treatment required.
Not sure how the other will be treated if the biopsy comes back positive for SCC.
It's NHS but a private company contracted and they have been appalling so far.

If they are being biopsied (unless they’re huge), I assume they will be removed. Mine was suspected SSC and it was removed completely at biopsy. Unfortunately, it turned out to be melanoma, which had already metastasised, so looks can be deceiving. Even dermatologist didn’t think it was anything serious. Wait for results can be up to 8 weeks, but mine came back in 3-4 weeks. In part, because I think at pathology, it got flagged early on as more serious and also because I hassled them a lot until they got back to me.

If it’s been removed with clear margins and is BCC or SCC, that’s probably it then. Otherwise, she will need a wide local excision, basically a wider bit taken out.

Sorry, I’ve only just seen this!

Yes she’s been told 6-8 weeks for the biopsy results to come back. I work in a department that deals with skin cancers and for a suspected BCC that makes sense to me, but for a suspected SCC that seems so long!

Yes she said the one on her forehead is probably a BCC and it looks like biopsy has got the entire mole

If it's flat like a scaly patch usually called a superficial BCC, they may give her Efudix cream, I had that for a scaly flat one I had. If it's lumpy then it will most likely be excised.

I think the one on her forehead was definitely a BCC, they think the one on her shoulder could be an SCC.

I’m not overly worried as I do work in this field, but it’s a bit infuriating because she says SPF causes skin cancer!