Greetings all, I recently heard that a colleague has died of skin cancer, we were the same age. It got me thinking. About 20 years ago, I got very badly burnt on my back ( I was bright red) it took weeks for it to recover. However, a small part below my shoulder never has, and what looks like a red blemish was left. It's never hurt and I've always kept an eye on it, noticing that as the years have gone by its got slightly smaller and not so red.

Would it be fair to say that its never going to fully recover and could it become malignant in time?

Just keep an eye on it and get regular screening.

No point over worrying.

Plenty of people with fair skin get badly burnt and never get skin cancer and then plenty of people get skin cancer who never had great exposure to the sun.

Although there is a link between skin cancer and sun exposure it is not clear why some get it and some don't so there are also other factors at play.

Sure, its just that after 20 years, it still hasn't gone away, guess the skin was so badly damaged it can't recover.

Any part of your skin could become malignant and areas that have had a lot of sun exposure (and esp. Areas that have burnef) are especially susceptible. But you do not describe anything that suggests a malignant lesion exists there now.

Sheryl, would it be worthwhile for the OP to undergo a treatment with Efudex or some other way to disclose if he had some precancerous cells?

I had a similar incident on my back, only I was five years old and it was just plain child abuse on the part of a teacher at a class outing. She wouldn't let me go into the shade and I was the only fair-skinned child in the class. The best I could do was to turn my back to the sun. I was so sunburn that I was vomiting that evening. To this day, I have areas on my upper back that itch from time-to-time.

In the U.S., I sometimes saw a dermatologist who prescribed several weeks of the U.S. version of Efudex and them lasered off the liaisons that were disclosed. We can't buy Efudex in Thailand and the dermatologists here all tell me I don't have a problem. Ifear that I'll die of skin cancer from this event, but then all I have to do is walk the streets of Chiang Mai and see other fair-skinned elderly expats with much worse liaisons on their head, nose and ears.

A friend mine died last year of skin cancer on his ear that wasn't properly diagnosed in Chiang Mai.