About The Skin

When things go wrong

Skin specialists (dermatologists) recognise a huge range of disorders that can affect the skin, and almost every structure in the skin is susceptible to malfunctioning of one sort or another. Some disorders are acute and short-lived, while others are chronic conditions that can persist for months, years or even a lifetime. Acute conditions include the many rashes associated with infectious diseases (measles, chickenpox), other rashes that may indicate some form of allergy (e.g. penicillin allergy) or blistering such as that found in herpes virus infection. Other disorders may affect mainly one of the specific skin structures – such as acne that affects the pilosebaceous units – or cause pigmentation abnormalities. These may be acute or chronic, or have the capacity to become chronic conditions if not treated adequately at the outset. A third group are the true chronic disorders. Many of these are called eruptive conditions, where there is a breakdown of organised skin structure and behaviour leading to splitting, scaling, fragmentation and possibly secondary infection. The two most common chronic disorders are eczema and psoriasis – each of which may take several different forms.

Although outside the scope of this booklet, there are various tumours that arise in the skin. Some of these are called benign – which means they do not spread and invade other parts of the body. Examples are warts that are caused by a specific group of human viruses, and various kinds of cyst. Some malignant tumours (cancers) also arise in the skin and can be serious if not dealt with promptly. The commonest is basal cell carcinoma; squamous carcinoma and malignant melanoma are less common, but more dangerous. If you have any lumps, bumps or moles on the skin that appear to be enlarging or changing in appearance, it is important to seek medical advice as soon as possible. In their early stages, the success rate for treating them is very high, but delay can prove fatal.

The three disorders discussed in this booklet, acne, eczema and psoriasis, each affect different structural components of the skin. Although an over-simplification, acne is mainly a condition that affects the hair follicles and sebaceous glands, eczema is an inflammatory and immune condition that disrupts various layers in the skin, while psoriasis is an abnormality of the actively dividing basal layer. These aspects are dealt with in more detail in later sections.

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