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Dr Daniel Glass
The Dermatology Clinic London
What causes skin cancer?
Dr. Daniel Glass lists some of the causes of skin cancer, including genetic predisposition, sun exposure, and other environmental factors.
Transcript
So skin cancer is like any other medical disease, it's a mixture of your genetic background and your environment. Your genetic background will be your family history of having skin cancer, whether your parents, your grandparents have had skin cancer, and your genetics will determine your skin type, whether you have fair skin or whether you have skin that tans more easily. If you have fair skin and you burn more easily, you have a higher risk of developing a skin cancer at some point. Skin cancers are very common indeed. Indeed, one in five people over the age of 70 has a skin cancer at some point. And the development of skin cancer will determine on what these people have done throughout their life, whether they've protected themselves from the sunshine, whether they've burned, whether they've used sunbeds in the past, particularly when they're younger, and all these factors add together and determine your risk of developing skin cancer at some point.