Squamous cell carcinoma (or squamous cell carcinoma) develops in the middle layers of the epidermis and accounts for 20% of all cases of skin cancer.

Usually occurs in areas that have been exposed to the sun, like the top of the nose, ears, forehead, upper lip and backs of hands.

You can also occur in areas of skin that have been in contact with chemicals that have undergone radiotherapy, or have been burned. In the genital area, appears less frequently.

Usually occurs usually a red bump and drive. Sometimes it may look, scaly, or bleed and develop a scab that never heals. As you have enlarged nodular and sometimes presents a warty surface. In the end, it becomes an open sore and growing into the underlying tissue. …read the rest of this entry»

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The incidence of invasive squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix (SCC) continues to decline among U.S. women but the same cannot be said for invasive cervical adenocarcinoma, according to researchers in the cancer epidemiology and genetics branch of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.

Dr. Sophia S. Wang and colleagues used the U.S. Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database to calculate incidence rates for cervical carcinoma diagnosed between 1976 and 2000 by histologic subtype, race, age, and disease stage.

More than 27,000 invasive cervical carcinomas were diagnosed during that period, with 19,703 cases of SCC and 3,895 cases of adenocarcinoma.

They report in the March 1st issue of the journal Cancer that the “overall incidence of invasive SCC declined over time, and the majority of tumors that are detected currently are in situ and localized carcinomas in young women.”

The sharp increase in cases of SCC in situ noted in the early 1990s likely reflects a culmination of events including changes in nomenclature, improvements in treatment, and screening, the team reports.

Rates of adenocarcinoma in situ also increased during the study period, especially in young women, again due to better screening. However, this has not yet translated into a decrease in invasive adenocarcinoma incidence rates, according to Dr. Wang and colleagues. “There does not yet appear to be a screening effect for invasive adenocarcinoma,” they write, although “sufficient time may not have lapsed for an effect to be observed.”

Etiologic factors may explain the increasing incidence of invasive cervical adenocarcinoma in young white women, the investigators suggest, while in black women, the increase may reflect a “lack of effective screening or a differential disease etiology.”