Skin Cancer and Other Growths. The skin of the face is the site for most skin cancers. This is because the face is the body area most exposed to sunlight, wind, and weather of all sorts. A skin cancer may begin as a small pearly growth which is continually unhealed, possibly crusted or bleeding, and probably oozing most of the time. Other growths of the skin such as warts, blemishes, moles and blood-filled growths are very common on the face. (See Skin Diseases).
Face Growths. In the face, growths of large or small caliber, may appear beneath the skin. One of the common sites for these growths is on the side of the head, just in front of the ear. This is the region of the parotid salivary gland, which gives rise to
Fig. 20. Mumps-like enlargements of the parotid salivary gland occur below and in front of the ears in later life, possibly due to infection or tumor growth. Tumors of the parotid gland are slow-growing, painless and questionably cancerous; they can be dealt with surgically.
frequent enlargements. Often the enlargement is only temporary, such as an enlarged lymph node similar to those seen in the neck. Growths of the parotid or anywhere underneath the skin, however, may be of cancerous nature, and should be strongly suspected until proven otherwise by the physician.
The treatment of facial growths, of the parotid gland or other regions, is essentially a surgical operation, in which the removal of the growth is usually curative. However, in cases where facial enlargement is only one site of many enlargements all over the body, other treatment may be necessary, depending upon the physician’s judgment.