Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer in Skin of Color: Cases of Mistaken Identity

The document from 2017 presented four cases of misdiagnosed squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), a type of non-melanoma skin cancer, in individuals with darker skin. The cases included a 57-year-old black male with a growth on his penis misdiagnosed as genital herpes, a 19-year-old black female with a growth under her fingernail misdiagnosed as a hangnail, a 50-year-old black male with a kidney transplant and a brown plaque on his hip misdiagnosed as seborrheic keratosis, and a 32-year-old black female with a non-healing ulcer on her gluteal cleft misdiagnosed as a decubitus ulcer. The document emphasized the importance of increasing suspicion and understanding of different presentations of non-melanoma skin cancer in darker-skinned individuals for earlier diagnosis and successful intervention.