A keloid scar is a thick raised scar. It can occur wherever you have a skin injury but usually forms on earlobes, shoulders, cheeks or the chest. If you're prone to developing keloids, you might get them in more than one place. A keloid scar isn't harmful to your physical health, but it can cause emotional distress.
Keloids often do not need treatment. If the keloid bothers you, discuss your concern with a skin doctor (dermatologist). The doctor may recommend these treatments to reduce the size of the keloid: Corticosteroid injections.
Keloids can be treated, so it is not a condition you have to continue living with. The treatment involves superficial radiation and is incredibly effective in removing keloid scars.
In some instances, a surgeon may recommend removing a large hypertrophic scar or keloid. Keloids that far exceed the margins of the original wound, for example, require removal to allow surgeons to reconstruct the surrounding skin and tissue and restore as much of the underlying structure as possible.
How common are keloids? About 10 percent of people experience keloid scarring. People under the age of 30 may be particularly at risk. People of African, Asian, or Latino descent, pregnant women, and those with a family history of keloids are more susceptible to this type of scarring.
They are not at all common, but are more likely for people who have dark skin. Anything that can cause a scar can cause a keloid. This includes being burned, cut, or having severe acne. Keloids can also develop after you get a body piercing, a tattoo, or have surgery.
Patients at high risk of keloids are usually younger than 30 years and have darker skin. Sternal skin, shoulders and upper arms, earlobes, and cheeks are most susceptible to developing keloids and hypertrophic scars.
Keloids can be painful or itchy but aren't usually dangerous to a person's health. However, depending on where they are located, they can be a cosmetic concern. Fortunately, there are many treatment options to help remove keloids.
Conclusion: Keloids never completely disappear to leave skin with normal texture, however they can resolve (flatten and soften) so they no longer burden patients in approximately one third of cases. Scars resolving spontaneously do so early in the disease. Those that don't may resolve after many years of treatment.
Keloid is a skin disease characterized by exaggerated scar formation, excessive fibroblast proliferation, and excessive collagen deposition. Cancers commonly arise from a fibrotic microenvironment; e.g., hepatoma arises from liver cirrhosis, and oral cancers arise from submucosal fibrosis.
Keloids can continue to grow for months or even years. They eventually stop growing but they do not disappear without treatment. In some cases, as mentioned above, keloids can return after they have been removed.
Most keloids continue to grow for weeks or months after they appear. A few grow for years. Growth tends to be slow.
Do keloids go away? Unlike a hypertrophic scar, a keloid doesn't fade with time. To reduce the appearance of a keloid, you need to treat it. When it comes to treatment, no one treatment works best for all keloids.
Around the area where you received the piercing you may have noticed a large, lumpy, raised scar. This could be a sign of a keloid, and they can appear on ears or as a keloid on nose piercings. They typically occur in places where an injury is healing. While they can be unattractive, keloids are rarely harmful.
An estimated ten percent of all people experience some degree of keloid scarring. While keloids have the potential to develop in nearly anyone, some groups of people are at an increased risk of developing these skin features.
It is a result of an overgrowth of granulation tissue (collagen type 3) at the site of a healed skin injury which is then slowly replaced by collagen type 1. Keloids are firm, rubbery lesions or shiny, fibrous nodules, and can vary from pink to the color of the person's skin or red to dark brown in color.
It may be very tempting to squeeze an ear keloid. However, you can't pop an ear keloid. Ear keloids are a type of scar tissue, so there isn't any pus to squeeze out, like a pimple. Trying to pop a keloid on your ear can damage your skin and introduce bacteria, which can cause an infection.
Stress promotes keloid formation by causing dermal distortion and compression which subsequently stimulate proliferation and enhanced protein synthesis in wound healing fibroblastic cells.
People with darker skin, such as black, Hispanic, and Asian people, are 15 to 20 times more likely to get keloids. But, some people with lighter skin also get them. Keloids are more common in people younger than 30 years, in pregnant women, and in teenagers going through puberty.
Risk Factors
Although a keloid scar can form on anyone, some ethnic groups are at a greater risk. People with more melanin in their skin, such as Black people, Asians, and Hispanics, are more susceptible. Some areas of the body are more prone to keloid scars, particularly parts where there is skin or muscle tension.
Age (10 and 30 years old): This is the peak time to develop keloids. Most people begin seeing keloids in their 20s. However, a keloid can develop at any time.
In the Caucasian patient, keloids tend to be erythematous and telangiectatic; they are often hyperpigmented in darker-skinned individuals. Keloids most commonly occur on the chest, shoulders, upper back, posterior neck, and earlobes.