Skin cancer is a disease of the body’s skin cells, caused mainly by cumulative exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun. It is a group of diseases in which cells are aggressive (grow and divide without respect to normal cell limits), invasive (invade and destroy adjacent tissues), and sometimes metastatic (spread to other locations in the body).
Skin cancer usually begins in the outside layer of the skin, called the epidermis. The different skin cancers are named after the type of cell they start from in the epidermis: Basal cells (Basal Cell Carcinoma), Squamous cells (squamous cell carcinoma) and Melanocytes (Melanoma).