acnitic cheilitis: treatment

Premalignant skin disease is an infection to the lips that causes itch to the lips. A short explanation is given in this article about the disease, followed by the possible methods used to cure this infection.

What is Premalignant skin disease?

Premalignant skin disease (also known as actinic cheilitis) is an infection caused by permanent exposure to sunlight. 
When an indiviual suffers from Actinic Cheilitis, it's common to see itches around the lips of the person in question, most of the times it's most visible on the lower lip. By a permanent exposure to sunlight, ephitalial cells are getting damaged, which makes the cells deviate in form, and the tissue, in this situation tissue of the lips, can't be build in a regular way. 
The itching of the lips is one of the syptoms of it. In some cases it's also possible it appears with an inflammation.
In rare cases it's even possible that it causes cancer, this form of cancer is called a Planocellulair carcinoom.

Treatment of Premalignant skin disease

There are some treatments available for premalignant skin disease, cryotherapy, photodynamic therapy and the lipshave.

Cryotherapy

During a Cryotherapy therapy treatment the patient is being cured by using freezing methods. The doctor usually uses liguid nitrogen to treat the damaged tissues and other inflammations. By freezing the damaged tissue there can be a development of inflammations, blisters or necrosis. These symptoms will cure naturally.
When all the blisters, inflammations and necrosis and the wound are cured, the patient won't have premalignant skin disease again, on the area where the patient has been treated.

Photodynamic therapy

During Photodynamic therapy a thin layer of creme will be attached to the area of the wound and the wound will be covered in a way that prevents that light will come through. The plaster will remain there for two to four hours, before it's being removed. 
In the next step, the area that's being treated will be exposed to light of a certain wavelength and intensity, for a period of ten minutes. It's very usual that this treatment has to be repeated. Most of the time, 2 or 3 treatments are sufficient. 
The benefit of this method is that the risk of growth of scar tissue is minimal. 

Lipshave

During the lipshave method, the doctor will make an excision on the lips. Meaning that the damaged tissues will be cut out of the area, so that the area becomes freed from premalignant skin disease. Because of the fact that this infection is always present, this method will leave a 'hole' on the lip. It's very common that this 'hole' is filled with other tissue that comes from the mucuos membrane in the mouth. This method is the most riskful of all, but when the other two methods (cryotherapy and photodynamic therapy)  won't work, the doctor can decide to do the lipshave method

Sources: www.todio.nl