Basal cell carcinoma- anyone know anything?

3 members of my family (inc mrs nick) have had this. in each case, not at all serious. in fact madams consultant says that virtually all are easily treatable and not life threatening (with the caveat that your mum needs to have the tests just to be sure, and I hope it ll all be fine, which I m sure it will)

Thanks Nick- that's very reassuring.

Nick's right, this is one of the "good" cancers.

About 1:3 of us will get BCC, it rarely metastasises, is open to a wide range of treatments and in over 90% of cases can be removed completely without complications.

In less than 50% of cases it reccurs in another location though.

Cancerbacup uk is a really good patient site for information that is easy to understand. Warmest wishes with you and your family.

Many thanks everybody x

Just another reassurance one, my dad was treated successfully for one with no comebacks. he possibly got it due to being out in the sun a lot on the golf course and similar

he just has to be extra careful using sun protection/wearing hats now

I had a suspected one on my eyebrow, but when I went to the specialist she thought it was just a cyst and didn't need anything doing.

She did say, though, that had it been a BCC, it wasn't a particularly big deal and they very rarely turn into anything worrying. The only real problem would be if it was allowed to grow and turn into an ulcer but she said that would be over years, rather than months ?

Hi Knownowt,

From a personal point of view, my Grandma has had BCCs twice now, both times on the side of her nose and just needed the BCC removed and a mild dose of radiotherapy to the area. As everyone else has said they are very common and highly unlikely to metastasise.

From a non-personal point of view I used to do research into a childhood tumour, which in a lot of cases is caused by disruptions in the same signalling pathway that causes BCCs. The difference is that in BCCs the DNA mutations in the tumour suppressor genes of the pathway are caused by UV mutations. The reason I'm telling you this is my Grandma was given false information by a nurse at the hospital that BCCs are not caused by the sun and only melanomas are, so my Grandma came home saying she didn't need to start using lots of sun cream ?. Make sure your mum starts using a really high factor on her skin, even if it's not all that sunny (I bought my Grandma a daily moisturiser with SPF factor even for winter) and she uses factor 50 when she is out in the sun and covers up, because as other people have said once you have one you are more likely to have another. It almost goes without saying that she needs to keep a close eye out for any other changes in her skin to check for other BCCs, especially on the face/neck/shoulders, which is where they are more common.

Hi,

Im a radiotherapist so I treat BCC's that cant be frozen. Its nothing to worry about. They are extreemly slow growing and wont spread to over areas of the body. The tests will probale be to determine what type of treatment would be best.