How can I tell the difference between age spots or liver spots and skin cancer?
The most frequently asked question today is if age spots and skin cancer are the same? Well, let me clear your confusion! These two aren't the same at all. Both possess different appearances and different reasons for their occurrences. While looking at your legs, hands, or neck area, you might find some sort of spots. But, it might puzzle you to get the correct answer if these spots are a sign of skin cancer or if it's just an age spot. Many well-known researchers and nurse practitioners like Mary Frausto revealed that finding out whether you have a liver spot or skin cancer can be a perplexing situation. But, the immediate solution to this is to find out the answers by contacting a well-known doctor. Meanwhile, you can also check the signs & symptoms of these two individual cases, and get an idea of what you have or what you don't have.
In this article, you're going to learn about how to differentiate between age spots and skin cancer.
What are the symptoms of Age Spots or Liver Spots?
You need to look for the symptoms of Age Spots or Liver Spots and you shall get your answer.
It has a freckle size of almost 1/2 inch that comes to 13 millimeters
It's generally flat and has oval shapes with the heightened pigmentation level
More prone to occur on the sun-exposed skin areas
It generally forms a group and creates the highlights of it.
Their major color has the shade of tan till dark brownish.
What are the symptoms of Skin Cancer?
You need to look for the following symptoms of Skin Cancer to get verified if you have this illness or not.
Asymmetry: A specific side of a mole doesn't resemble the other side.
Border: The perimeters or the borders or edges are usually in an irregular shape.
Color: Multiple vibrant colors like brown, blue, black, white, red, pink, or tan shades.
Diameter: Generally, a skin cancer spot is bigger than 6mm but it can be small as well.
Evolving: Skin lesions and moles unexpectedly cause variations in shape, color & size.
Best way to explain the variation between age spots or liver spots and skin cancer
Spotting a clear difference between the age spots or liver spots and skin cancer is not easy. But, with the help of the following things you can tell whether or not you have the risk of skin cancer.
Spot's changing pace: Generally, the time is taken up by the Age spots for changing their physical appearance and colors like pink to yellowish texture, or brownish blackish form takes years. In the case of skin cancer, spots might change their color or appearance within a matter of days.
Discomfort, bleeding, and discharge: Talking about the age spots, they generally don't lead to uncomfortable outcomes. It doesn't bleed as well as ooze. But, in case you have skin cancer, you might face all of these symptoms.
Family history line: The presence of genetic elements is quite common in both the cases I.e., age spots case and skin cancer. People who hold a family history line of having either of these two cases are at higher risk of having both of them based on the case. While speaking with the doctor, make sure to reveal this mystery to him.
Diameter Size: The asymmetric spots possess boundaries that usually alter with time, the color alters and gets more vibrant along with the changes in its diameter size. These all signs depict the presence of skin cancer and not just an age spot.
Itching: Whether it's skin cancer or a liver spot I.e., age spot, both are likely to possess itching characteristics. Although the Itchiness that arises due to the age spots doesn't need any special attention as it goes away with time. But, itching due to skin cancer doesn't go away with time and it keeps on increasing with each passing day.
Note: The location where you are having a spot is never going to provide you any hint of having an age spot or skin cancer. Location doesn't tell you any about it because whether it's the liver spot or age spots and skin cancer, they don't come based on the location factor. They are likely to appear mostly over open areas but they can arrive in any part of your body. Apart from this, even age cannot tell you whether you're going through the age spot or the skin cancer. It's because it's likely that you are going to have the age spots after crossing your 30's. On The other side, people who are less than 30's can also develop skin cancer or age spots based on specific genetic elements that they inherited from their family line. Although, to describe well the connection between skin cancer & age is quite a difficult task to do, yet researchers have found out that Basal and squamous cell skin cancer is seen to be highly widespread among the old aged people. On the other hand, Melanomas that are considered to be deadly skin cancer are seen to be more common among folks of all age groups whether a child or an old aged.
Key Takeaways
People have a hard time detecting the difference between Age spots to liver spots and skin cancer. Both freaks and scare them out due to the reason of having so many similar resemblances of these two with each other. Many times, you will find it tough to state all by yourself that the spot you have is something normal or if it's something that requires your immediate action. The immediate thing you should do in such a perplexing situation is to contact the dermatologist to get the proper checkup done. Once it's done, and other screenings are performed by the doctor, you can take your final step from there onwards on what to do next.
References
https://www.parrishhealthcare.com/news/2020/july/are-age-spots-an-early-sign-of-skin-cancer-/
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/age-spots/symptoms-causes/syc-20355859