Im a dermatologist these easily overlooked signs on your skin may indicate cancer

Let’s face it — your pimple may be more problematic than you realize.A Harvard-trained dermatologist warns that some benign-seeming blemishes could be cancerous.Dr.Daniel Sugai urges patients with persistent pimples that last longer than a month to seek treatment.“If you have a pimple that won’t go away in four weeks, please see your dermatologist,” he said this week on TikTok.Another sign it’s time to get checked? Spots that bleed.

“Another complaint I hear patients say is that, ‘I just washed my face and there’s this one spot that keeps bleeding and it does this bleed-scab cycle,’ ” said Sugai, who is based in the Seattle area.“If you have a spot that’s not fully healing or is very fragile with gentle trauma, like washing your face, definitely see your dermatologist.”Sugai shared that both symptoms could be signs of basal cell carcinoma (BCC), the most common type of cancer.Some 3.6 million Americans are diagnosed with BCC each year, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation.As the name implies, this skin cancer starts in basal cells, which produce new skin cells as the old ones die off, according to the Mayo Clinic.  “I diagnose these every day, and I actually treat them surgically every day,” said Sugai.

BCCs develop “tree-like blood vessels” to aid their growth, making them especially prone to bleeding.BCC can manifest as a pimple that doesn’t appear to heal, a shiny, skin-colored bump, a white or waxy lesion, a flat, scaly patch or a lesion that is black, brown or blue.Addressing patients of color, Sugai noted that BCC commonly presents as pigmented.“It’s usually hyperpigmented with some red mixed in, and with time, it will start to be an eroded plaque that will bleed easily,” he said.According to Sugai, the first two decades of life are absolutely critical for sun protection.“Getting those sunburns early on in life will definitely affect how healthy your DNA is later on in life.”Still, he said, late is bette...