What kind of skin cancer looks like a horn?

Squamous cell carcinoma is the most common skin cancer that can occur with a cutaneous horn. It develops in about 94\% of all malignant cutaneous horn cases.

What is a cutaneous horn?

Cutaneous horns (cornu cutaneum) are uncommon lesions consisting of keratotic material resembling that of an animal horn. Cutaneous horn may arise from a wide range of the epidermal lesions, which may be benign, premalignant or malignant.

How does a cutaneous horn start?

A cutaneous horn, also known as cornu cutaneum, refers to a specific appearance of a skin lesion in which a cone-shaped protuberance arises on the skin caused by overgrowth of the most superficial layer of skin (epidermis). A cutaneous horn is not a particular lesion but is a reaction pattern of the skin.

How do I get rid of cutaneous horn?

Cutaneous Horn Removal If the lesion that is the underlying cause of a skin horn is benign (noncancerous), it is often treated by excision (surgical removal or resection) or with a procedure called curettage. This is a medical procedure involving the removal of tissue by scraping or scooping.

Is a cutaneous horn a wart?

Cutaneous horn usually arises due to an underlying epidermal lesion, the most common being verruca vulgaris (wart), actinic keratosis (a potentially pre-malignant lesion of dysplastic keratinocytes), or squamous cell carcinoma (a form of skin cancer). These can look essentially identical clinically.

Can HPV cause horns?

The most famous case of cutaneous horns is possibly the so-called “tree man” of Indonesia. The “tree man” has an extremely rare genetic defect that, after exposure to the human papillomavirus (HPV), causes his skin to produce massive amounts of cutaneous horns.

What happens when HPV is left untreated?

In most cases, HPV goes away on its own and does not cause any health problems. But when HPV does not go away, it can cause health problems like genital warts and cancer. Genital warts usually appear as a small bump or group of bumps in the genital area.

What is a horn cyst?

Horn cysts represent foci of abrupt complete keratinization (with only a very thin surrounding granular cell layer and without retained nuclei). It may be pseudo or true. Pseudo horn cysts results from sectioning of a markedly papillomatous skin.