Dr. Rachel Neal

Skin cancer is caused by exposing the cells in the skin to UV radiation and particularly UVB radiation.

So UV radiation comes in different flavors, so to speak.

So those most harmful rays cause skin cancer by causing mutations in the DNA in our cells.

So if you get one,

It's generally not a big problem, but what happens if that mutation occurs in a gene that's really important for DNA repair, for example, so our cells are not so good at DNA repair and then we get another mutation and then we potentially get another mutation and then eventually we tip our cells over into forming into a skin cancer.

So there are three main types of skin cancer.

The one that's most dangerous is melanoma.

And people do die from melanoma every year because it can spread beyond the skin.

So if it's not picked up early enough, then by the time it's diagnosed, it can have spread to other organs in the body as

And then we've got these other types of skin cancer.

So these are squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma, and collectively we call them keratinocyte cancers because they arise from a type of cell called a keratinocyte in the skin.