treatyourscars While hypertrophic scars and keloid scars are themselves both benign, the out-of-control growth of a keloid scar may be a sign of skin cancer. Keloid scars are typically larger than the initial injury itself; it can take weeks to months for them to fully develop. Removing the keloid can mean the scar tissue simply grows back, sometimes larger than it was. Unlike normal scar tissue, a keloid does not recede, and can spread outside of the initial wound.
Keloids arise as the result of the overgrowth of scar tissue; symptoms develop over a location that was previously injured by the skin. Scar tissue may develop as a result of injuries to or skin lesions caused by accident, inflammation, burns, and surgical incisions. A keloid is the growth of excess scar tissue after the skin has healed after an injury resulting typically from acne, burns, punctures, cuts, scratches, surgical incisions, and vaccinations. Keloids are benign fibroproliferative tumors that may cause excess growth of scar-like tissue on the skin.
Keloids are considered to be benign fibroproliferative dermal tumors that arise from an abnormal process of wound healing after an injury to the skin. Previous reports indicate that keloids arise from abnormal wound healing, are most prevalent in tight areas such as the back and chest, and are found among those who have darker skin.
A keloidal scar may develop from a very small amount of skin damage, like a pimple or puncture, and it may spread outside of the initial area of skin damage. Keloids may develop in areas where the skin is damaged, such as from surgery cuts, a piercing, a burn, chickenpox, or acne.
Keloid scarring can develop anywhere on the body, but the ears are a common place where keloids develop, usually following injury or an ear piercing. Keloid scarring can happen wherever you suffer skin damage, but it typically forms on your earlobes, shoulders, cheeks, or chest. It is unique because the normal pathological process by which a BCC develops necrosis and ulceration, which in turn causes inflammation and the keloid scar to form, is reversible.
Despite the prevalence of BCCs, those developing inside the scar tissue are uncommon, and the occurrence of keloid BCCs has been reported infrequently in the literature.
There are occasional reported cases where patients have developed keloid tumors along with certain forms of cancer, adds one researcher. Several lines of evidence from earlier studies suggest that keloids and cancers of humans might have similar pathophysiological processes. The major findings from the present study confirm our hypothesis that patients with keloids are at higher than usual risk for developing cancer, particularly skin and pancreatic cancer.
In a cohort study conducted in Taiwan, patients with keloids had a higher risk of developing several forms of cancer–pancreatic and skin cancers, specifically–than the general population, with a corrected odds ratio of 1.51 (95% CI 1.39%-1.63), according to one of the researchers and colleagues. Keloid patients had a 1.73-fold higher risk of developing skin cancer than patients without keloids, and men with keloids had an even higher RR (2.16).
Despite their effects, the precise causes of keloid formation are not known. The multidisciplinary team posited that African American women with keloid histories will mirror a demographic of breast cancer patients with aggressive tumors and worse outcomes.
Although an 81-year-old African American man had a previous history of keloids, we suspected changes in growth factors and cytokines promoting keloids as a result of breast cancer might increase the severity of his keloids. An alternative hypothesis, noted in the review process, is that breast cancer might have caused a tumor-specific immune response, which may have affected his keloid growth, either through cross-recognition with fibroblast cells or via an observer mechanism. The hypotheses highlight the need for the identification of keloids, not as scars, but as diseases in order to design targeted therapies, which may result in improved diagnostics and theranosis.
Although viewed traditionally as a form of skin scarring, keloids exhibit a number of characteristics similar to cancers, such as uncontrolled growth that is progressive, the absence of spontaneous regression, and an extraordinarily high rate of recurrence. In contrast, keloids are aggressive exophytic dermal outgrowths that disproportionately grow outside of the boundaries of the initial injury, from a source that remains suspended during wounded healing and scar maturation.
These overgrowths, called keloids, are typically glossy, solid, and smooth, just like normal scars, but they typically cover a far larger area, and they continue growing for weeks to months after injury. In keloids, local hypoxia in the injury area speeds up wound healing, stimulating angiogenesis and driving the proliferation of fibroblasts, as demonstrated by the hypoxia-induced VEGF expression in keloidal fibroblasts, and a higher density of blood vessels in keloids than normal dermis and scars.
Because keloids are characterized by increased blood vessel density in comparison to the normal dermis or scar tissue, aberrant VEGF expression has also been linked to the genesis of keloids. The exact reasons why wound healing occasionally leads to the formation of keloids are being investigated but are still unclear.
Thick tissues build up from and extend out of the healing site, making scars larger than the initial wound. Sun exposure or tanning can bleach scar tissue, making it a little darker than your surrounding skin. For instance, some acne scars can simply form an atrophic scar, a flat, shallow depression in your skin, whereas others with acne scars can develop a keloid.
Most types of skin injuries may contribute to the development of keloids, and they include, acne scars, burns, chickenpox scars, scratches from an ear piercing, surgical cuts, vaccine sites, and so on and so forth. Keloid growth can be caused by any kind of skin trauma — insect bite, acne, injection, body piercing, burns, hair removal, and even small scratches, and lumps. There is likely to be a key regulator, or cluster, of prerequisite factors, which, once activated following a skin injury, sets off a cascade of events that culminates in the emergence of a keloid scar.
