Can you feel skin cancer? All of your important questions answered

First thing’s first — no, you can­not feel skin can­cer, at least not in the same way you would a stom­ach ache or some­thing like that. What you can feel, how­ev­er, are some of the warn­ing signs and symp­toms that skin can­cer might bring with it like itch­i­ness, burn­ing, and so on.

These skin cancer symptoms will vary depend­ing on the area of your body that is affect­ed. This is why it is always impor­tant to get to know your own skin as well as you can.

Also com­mon­ly referred to as SCC, squa­mous cell car­ci­no­ma accounts for the remain­ing 30% of all non-melanoma skin can­cers in Aus­tralia. Once again, it begins in the upper lay­er of the epi­der­mis and typ­i­cal­ly appears on the parts of your body that see the most expo­sure to the sun.

Unlike BCC, SCC cells can grow very quick­ly — some­times over only a few months or even weeks.

Affect­ed sites on your body will typ­i­cal­ly include your low­er legs, your fore­arms, your hands, your head, and even your neck. Be on the look­out for a firm, pink-coloured lump that has either a crusty or a rough sur­face. Note that this area will like­ly be very ten­der and can bleed quite eas­i­ly. This is one of the most imme­di­ate signs that you need to see a pro­fes­sion­al for prop­er detec­tion and skin cancer treatment.

Final­ly, we arrive at melanoma — cer­tain­ly not the most com­mon type of skin can­cer in Aus­tralia, but absolute­ly the most deadly.

In 2014, for exam­ple, there were 13,134 new cas­es of melanoma in the coun­try, mak­ing up an incred­i­ble 10% of all can­cer diag­noses. The very next year, in 2015, there were over 1,500 deaths direct­ly attrib­uted to this par­tic­u­lar form of skin cancer.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, melanoma often has no symp­toms — at least, not obvi­ous ones. Because of this, it is very uncom­mon for there to be some type of warn­ing sign that you can actu­al­ly ​“feel.” Usu­al­ly, melanoma devel­ops from total­ly new moles or takes the form of changes to old ones.

If a mole appears to get big­ger over time, if it has an irreg­u­lar bor­der or an increase in height, if it changes colours and becomes blotchy or is par­tic­u­lar­ly prone to itch­ing or bleed­ing, you may be deal­ing with melanoma, and you should get your­self to a doc­tor right away.

In an age where two-thirds of the Aus­tralian pop­u­la­tion will be diag­nosed with some form of skin can­cer by the time they reach age 70, to say that accu­rate detec­tion is impor­tant is some­thing of an understatement.

This is, in part, the need that MoleMap skin cancer clinics was designed to fill. It is an invalu­able ser­vice for you to spot skin can­cer in its ear­li­est and most treat­able stages.

If you’d like to find out more about the warn­ing signs and oth­er symp­toms of skin can­cer, or if you have any oth­er ques­tions you’d like to see answered, please don’t hes­i­tate to con­tact us today.

You can also vis­it our web­site and take our 1‑minute risk check – if you’re medi­um to high risk, it’s a good idea to have an annu­al skin check and mole check.