Explaining Skin Cancer to Newly Diagnosed Patients | An Oncodermatologist Weighs In
Explaining Skin Cancer to Newly Diagnosed Patients: An Oncodermatologist Weighs In from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
How can skin cancer be explained to newly diagnosed patients? Expert Dr. Silvina Pugliese shares how she explains various skin cancer subtypes, the origin of different skin cancers, and how the incidence rate and appearance can differ for some non-melanoma skin cancers.
Silvina Pugliese, M.D., is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Dermatology and Attending Physician at the Stanford Medicine Outpatient Center and Stanford Cancer Institute. Learn more about Dr. Pugliese.
[ACT]IVATION TIP
“…knowing that there are common non-melanoma skin cancers called basal cell cancer and squamous cell cancer, that they arise from keratinocyte carcinoma and that they can look different from other types of skin cancers such as melanoma. So the big difference there is that these, instead of being brown or black primarily, which is what we think about melanoma, these kinds of skin cancers tend to be pink, red, scaly, they can sometimes have some brown pigment in the pigmented variants…”
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Transcript:
Mary Leer:
Dr. Pugliese, how do you explain skin cancers to your newly diagnosed patients?
Dr. Silvina Pugliese:
So, when explaining skin cancers to my patients, I will, and this is in the context of explaining non-melanoma skin cancers, I will explain that they are cancers arising from different cells within the skin, so in the case of both basal cell cancer and squamous cell cancer, they arise from keratinocytes within the skin, and I’ll explain that the skin cancers are different from melanoma because many patients will have heard about melanoma, and I may know people who had melanoma, but they may know a little bit less about basal cell or squamous cell, despite those being the more common types of skin cancers.
I also will explain that basal cell and squamous cell are really the more common skin cancers that we encounter, so in the case of basal cell cancers, there are about 4 million cases diagnosed each year in the United States, and squamous cell cancer is the second most common kind of skin cancer with approximately 2 million cases diagnosed each year of squamous cell cancer. My activation tip for this question is knowing that there are common non-melanoma skin cancers called basal cell cancer and squamous cell cancer, that they arise from keratinocyte carcinoma and that they can look different from other types of skin cancers such as melanoma.
So the big difference there is that these, instead of being brown or black primarily, which is what we think about melanoma, these kinds of skin cancers tend to be pink, red, scaly, they can sometimes have some brown pigment in the pigmented variants. But they have a different clinical appearance. It’s important to know that so that you can identify these types of skin cancers on your skin since they are the most common.
