The mark on your skin that raises the risk of deadly cancer - and no, it's not a mole. Almost everyone has one somewhere on their body... the warning signs are so easy to miss

By LUCY ELKINS, GOOD HEALTH CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Published: 00:59, 30 June 2026 | Updated: 01:03, 30 June 2026 Waking up to find a scar he’d had above his eyebrow for 53 years had opened up, TV presenter Mike Parry presumed he had caught it on something. In fact, the ‘cut’ was the first sign of a tumour – having a scar is now known to raise your risk of skin cancer. But cancer was the last thing on Mike’s mind, not least because, he says: ‘I hate sitting in the sun and I always have.’ So even though for months the small cut bled repeatedly, mostly during the night, ‘I thought it would heal on its own and was just taking its time,’ says Mike, a regular on Channel 5’s Jeremy Vine show and GB News, who lives in Cheam, Surrey. ‘It didn’t hurt and wasn’t causing me any real bother.’ By March this year – four months after the tiny cut appeared – Mike had a 2cm open wound running along his right eyebrow and made an appointment at a private hospital to get it checked. ‘I thought I’d need a couple of stitches and that would be that,’ he says. ‘But the doctor said: “I don’t like the look of that.” She examined it further and within minutes she told me I had skin cancer. ‘I was honestly shocked. The word cancer hits you hard and I hadn’t been expecting it at all,’ says Mike. Further checks revealed that in addition to the tumour in his eyebrow he had a smaller cancer on his nose – which looked like ‘a white blob’ to Mike – and a 1cm cancer on the top of his right arm which resembled a vaccine scar and had been there for years. ‘I was honestly shocked. The word cancer hits you hard and I hadn’t been expecting it at all,’ says Mike Having a scar is now known to raise your risk of skin cancer. Mike's 'cut' was the first sign of a tumour ‘I was genuinely surprised that someone like me could get skin cancer,’ he says. ‘If the sun comes out while I’m having a pub lunch in the garden with friends, I’m the type that goes straight under the umbrella or inside. ‘Even on holiday the closest I would get to the sun would be sitting in the shade on the hotel balcony and I always keep a hat and a long-sleeved shirt on.’ What Mike didn’t know was that he had several risk factors that made him vulnerable to cancer. Having a scar increases the risk of any skin cancer, including malignant melanoma, the most deadly kind which claims the lives of almost 3,000 people in the UK each year. What’s more, skin cancers that occur in scars may be more likely to ‘demonstrate aggressive clinical behaviour with significant morbidity and mortality’, according to a review of 211 studies of people with burn-related scars, published in the Journal of Plastic Surgery and Hand Surgery in April. As for Mike’s lack of time in the sun, even casual exposure can raise the risk. A few years ago he was told to take vitamin D, known as the sunshine vitamin, because a blood test found his levels were low, even in summer. Mike has basal cell carcinoma (BCC) which develops in cells in the outermost part of the skin. Their role is to keep regenerating and repairing the skin. But over time the sun’s rays can change their DNA, leading to cancer.  ‘BCCs are associated with casual sun exposure – what we call cumulative exposure, the kind you can get from just walking around in your day-to-day life,’ says Dr Adil Sheraz, a consultant dermatologist in London and a spokesman for the British Association of Dermatologists. While most of us think about moles when it comes to skin cancer, having a scar also increases the risk of any skin cancer A few years ago Mike was told to take vitamin D, known as the sunshine vitamin, because a blood test found his levels were low, even in summer Which is why you need to wear sunscreen when the UV index, a measure of the sun’s strength, is above three – which means wearing it daily between April and September, even in the UK. As BCCs aren’t life-threatening, people often underestimate the harm they can do, says Dr Justine Hextall, a consultant dermatologist at University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust. ‘But BCCs are very destructive; they erode or eat away at the surrounding skin. That’s why they are also known as rodent ulcers,’ she says. ‘Some people end up needing half their nose removed because of a BCC. ‘If they are growing towards the back or side of the eye they can impact your vision – and people have lost their sight as a result.’ BCCs typically grow on the head and face and often ‘appear where there are fault lines’, for example in smile lines that run from the nose to the mouth, says Dr Hextall. ‘Sometimes they start as a shiny nodule or pearly lump that just gets bigger over time and may go on to ulcerate or break down,’ says Dr Sheraz. ‘But occasionally they present as what looks like a cut or injury that doesn’t heal.’ As they are generally painless and grow slowly – often by just 2mm to 4mm a year – people may not notice them in the early stages. And if they start in scars, as Mike’s did, many presume it is just the scar breaking open. Mike’s scar was the result of a wound inflicted by a waiter when he was 18, in ‘a case of mistaken identity’. (‘He wrongly thought I was dating his ex-girlfriend,’ says Mike.) The impact split his forehead and Mike required 13 stitches, but the resulting scar shrank over time. Scars make the skin more vulnerable to cancer for a number of reasons, says Dr Hextall.  ‘Scar tissue is paler than normal skin as it has fewer melanocytes – the cells that provide pigment,’ she adds. ‘That means it has less protection from UV rays, but also fewer immune cells patrol this kind of tissue.’  This is because scar tissue has fewer blood vessels. The structure of scars may also prevent immune cells from accessing the area. This means you should take special care to protect scars and burns from the sun, ‘and if they start to show signs of ulceration or bleeding then you really should get them checked out,’ says Dr Hextall. Mike’s scar wasn’t his sole risk factor. He also has pale skin, which produces more pheomelanin, a pigment that provides the colour for blonde and red hair. As Dr Hextall explains, pale skin is not good at protecting itself from the sun’s rays, ‘and may create free radicals [by-products that damage cells] when hit by UV – which can promote tumour formation’. Around 30 per cent of people in the UK with fair skin will develop at least one BCC in their lifetime, according to the British Association of Dermatologists – and the number affected has grown, partly due to sun exposure but also because of sunbed use. ‘Social media has a role,’ says Dr Sheraz. ‘Lots of so-called experts on it are telling people that tanning beds are good for you and sunscreen is harmful.’ In fact, levels of UVA – the type of ultraviolet radiation used in sunbeds – is up to ten times stronger than the sun ‘and penetrates the skin’s basal layer, the area of BCC development’, Dr Hextall explains. Small, superficial BCCs can be frozen off, or treated with an anti-cancer cream, she says. But deeper ones have to be cut out. The other option for invasive or hard-to-access cancer is radiotherapy. Last week Mike began a five-day course of radiotherapy for the cancer on his eyebrow. He will need a further course on his nose; the cancer on his arm has been cut out. ‘The radiotherapy makes me feel a bit dizzy and I felt as if I had been hit in the eye,’ he says. ‘But I know it could have been a lot worse. The cancer could have left me with even more scarring.’ The comments below have not been moderated. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our Privacy Policy.