A keloid is not a cancer.

When the skin is damaged, by an injury, an operation, or an infection, it repairs itself by making scar tissue.   Sometimes this process goes wrong, and far too much scar tissue is produced, forming an overgrowth of scar tissue.  This is a keloid.

Keloids appear about 3 to 4 weeks after the skin is damaged, and then grow steadily for a period of months (or very occasionally, for years).  They are most often seen on the earlobes, chin, neck, shoulders, chest, and lower part of the legs.  They look like smooth skin, and are curved lumps. 

Keloids only develop at the site where skin has been injured, they don’t spread to other places.

Although keloids are not cancers, and cause no harm, they can be quite unsightly.  If they are a cosmetic problem then surgery, often combined with radiotherapy, may get rid of them.

Anyone may be affected by keloids however, they are far more common in African-Caribbeans than other people.  They are most likely in younger people, between the ages of 12 to 30, and occur slightly more often in women than men.