Dealing with Sun Damaged Skin due to Ultraviolet Radiation
Sunburn
The main agent here is UVB. We are all familiar with the sight of a lobster-colored sunbather who has badly underestimated the sun’s intensity or the amount of scattered radiations. It appears from thirty minutes to several hours after exposure and starts with redness and a burning sensation.
In severe cases swelling and blistering appears, reaching a maximum on the second day, and in that situation some headache and fever are often present. It settles slowly and peeling is the last stage. There is no very effective treatment for sunburn, though wrapping the affected parts in water-soaked bandages is soothing.
Skin Thickness
A few days after exposure the epidermis shows a slight increase in thickness, and this may have a protective effect.
Pigmentation
The well-known suntan is the result of new melanin pigment in the epidermis which appears a few days after UVB exposure. It is an effective though not complete absorber of further UVB. People with the fairest skin may never tan but always bum. Most people redden little before tanning but others never burn.
Long-term effects of UV
These can be divided into photoaging, potentially malignant and frankly malignant tumors. The changes result from a cumulative dose of UVB over many years. At present, the worst affected are fair-skinned Britons, who have been brought up in tropical or subtropical climates, e.g. Northern Australia or the southern states of the USA.
Other groups include men who spent years in the desert in World War Two. The victims of the future are today’s young men and women who roast themselves on sunny beaches every summer and who then try to maintain the tan by using sunbeds through the winter months.
PhotoAging
Multiple small freckles appear together with rather larger and more pronounced flat brown spots often called liver spots. The skin shows unevenness in thickness, and blood vessels become visible through the thinner areas: there is also unevenness of color with yellow or dirty yellow sheets appearing particularly on the temples, face and neck.
It may become studded with blackheads and small white cysts. Not only do fine wrinkles appear but larger permanent furrows become a prominent feature around the eyes, mouth, forehead and neck.
Potentially malignant
Solar keratoses are sand-papery or barnacle-like areas of skin found mainly in fair-skinned people or after middle-age. The face, scalp (if bald), ears, neck and backs of the hands are the usual sites. Very early examples may only show a redness on the skin and late or well-developed ones can be large heaped-up tumors.
They may be multiple or form a sheet over one to three square inches. There are two reasons for treating solar keratoses. First, they may be ugly, itchy or annoying because of their site, but secondly there is a small risk of transformation into a squamous cell cancer.
This is really only a possibility in the larger ones with a red swollen base so treatment to all solar keratoses is not essential. Bowen’s disease is a less common pre-malignant condition. It usually begins as a flat red scaly area which gradually enlarges with a well-defined edge.
Any part of the body may be involved and more than one area may start simultaneously. The risk of change into a true skin cancer is very low.
