These guidelines “Guidelines for the management of actinic keratoses” have been prepared for dermatologists and reflect the best data available at the time the report was prepared. Actinic (syn. solar) keratoses (AKs) are keratotic lesions occurring on the chronically light-exposed adult skin. They represent focal areas of abnormal keratinocyte proliferation and differentiation that carry a low risk of progression to invasive squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). A spectrum of histology is seen but the cardinal feature of an AK is epithelial dysplasia.
This may be restricted to the basal layer or may extend to full-thickness atypia at which point differentiation from Bowen’s disease can be difficult. There are disorderly arrangement and maturation of epithelial cells. Multiple buds of epithelial cells may occur at the membrane zone but no invasion is seen. Histological variants of AKs have…
