An actinic keratoses is a small growth in the skin, usually resulting from exposure to the sun. ItŐs generally exposure over a long period of time. In general, an actinic keratoses itself is not a skin cancer. However, it can become one. Therefore, it is important to see your dermatologist about it so that you can gauge your risk of developing skin cancer, and more importantly, avoiding skin cancer. Generally, the symptoms of actinic keratoses can be none to just rough skin, sometimes inflamed skin. Sometimes even easy bruising or itching of the skin. So the dermatologist ultimately has to do the exam to make sure that this is in fact a keratoses. Some actinic keratoses can in fact go away on their own, generally as a result of inflammation, but more importantly, treatment with medications and creams, or in fact, prevention are the best way to in fact follow keratoses. At UVA we have a significant number of options to treat actinic keratoses. We can treat them, for example, with destructive methods like cold sprays, electrical current. We have available creams that we specifically compound to treat these diseases, and often even surgery. And so having the variety of treatments available and the expertise in each area make us a distinctive care center.