clinical features

Last edited 02/2022

  • patients are middle-aged or elderly:
    • more common in outdoor workers e.g. fishermen
    • more common in fair-skinned people who live in tropical or sub-tropical regions e.g. Southern USA & Australia
  • red, scaling papulue or plaque on a sun-exposed area (1)
  • skin lesions bleed easily with minor trauma
  • typically, patients give a history of a lesion that loses its scale but then recurs

There are six types of actinic keratosis that can be recognized histologically: hypertrophic, atrophic, bowenoid, acantholytic, pigmented, and lichenoid (1).

Reference: