if our skin cells are constantly dying and being replaced by new ones, how can a bad sunburn turn into cancer YEARS down the line?

Question

if our skin cells are constantly dying and being replaced by new ones, how can a bad sunburn turn into cancer YEARS down the line?

In: 3306

Answer 1

The sunburn damages the cell’s nucleus and mutates the DNA within. The cell now reproduces with incorrect directions, so the result is a tumor (cells that are put together incorrectly). That tumor may or may not be cancerous, if it is then it typically grows and spreads very slowly at first because it started with a small group of cells. The larger the group of cancerous cells become, the faster it divides and the faster it grows/spreads.