Home » Basal Cell Carcinoma » Diagnosis of Basal Cell Carcinoma Physicians can usually identify many skin disorders simply by looking at the skin. There may be some revealing characteristics that help the physicians to detect any disorders. Those characteristics could be described as size, shape, color and the location of the abnormality. The presence or absence of other symptoms of signs may also help the doctors. But for basal cell carcinoma, this might not be the case always. For Diagnosis of Basal Cell Carcinoma, it might be necessary to perform a biopsy test of the abnormal part of the body that would give you the exact result of whether the patient has got basal cell carcinoma or not. As a result of this, physicians consider the biopsy test as the best possible option for Diagnosis of Basal Cell Carcinoma. For proper Diagnosis of Basal Cell Carcinoma, doctors usually remove all or a part of the growth that has been detected, by performing a biopsy. In case of small lesions, the tumor is generally removed entirely. But, if it is a relatively larger lesion, then a they first go for the biopsy of a part of the growth and surgically remove the rest of the growth if its malignancy is confirmed. The biopsy process involves taking a sample of the growth by injecting a local anesthesia and scraping a small piece (2 or 3 mm) of skin from the most infected area. Doctors use a small knife (scalpel), scissors, razor blade (shave biopsy). This method is called as a Shave Biopsy. The remove skin or the piece of growth is then examined under a microscope to check for any cancer cells. Basal cell carcinoma is the malignant epithelial tumor arising only in the skin from the basal layer of the epidermis or of the pilosebaceous adnexa. Basal cell carcinomas exhibit several markedly different subtypes and occur at different locations. Head and the neck is the mostly affected area. The trunk and the lower limbs can also get affected. It is very rare in the backs of the hands. With the recent increase truncal tumors, the distribution of basal cell carcinoma is changing in these days. In earlier days, the basal cell carcinomas were mostly small in size, translucent or pearly, with raised areas through which dilated vessel could be seen. But the rodent ulcer is the classic form of basal cell carcinomas which has an indurated edge and ulcerated center. This type of tumor grows slowly, but if neglected, can spread deeply to cost you heavily.

Doctors usually divide skin cancers into two stages viz. local and metastatic. In the local cancer, the skin is only affected. But in case of metastatic cancers, the infection spreads beyond the skin. As told earlier, as the skin cancers spread rarely, to determine the stage of the cancer, it is utmost necessary to go for biopsy test. If the growth is very large, then it needs careful checkup of the lymph nodes in the area. There might require some additional tests such as special X-rays in order to find whether the infection has spread to other parts of the body or not. It would be very helpful for the doctor to know the stage of the cancer. Based on that, the doctor can start the treatment of the patient.