A nail cleaning and painting session at a specialist center in the United States turned into a frightening nightmare, as a young woman who underwent this simple operation developed cancer as a result.
And California’s Grace Garcia had fatal cancer under her nails after being “a cruel manicurist cleaning the skin around her nails,” according to US network Fox News.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Garcia told Fox News, “Something as simple as a manicure could kill me,” referring to cleaning the nails and the skin around them.
After a session she booked in to get her nails done, the mother-of-three noticed that her finger “was in a lot of pain” and it looked like a blister had formed on the skin around the nail.
When it didn’t get better after 3 months, she realized that something was wrong, so she decided to see a dermatologist who took a biopsy from her finger.
Garcia was diagnosed with a type of non-melanoma skin cancer known as squamous cell carcinoma.
Doctor Theo Suleimani, who treated Garcia, said the cancer was caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), pointing out that the “nail session” she had “could have caused the cancer to develop.”
It’s not clear exactly how many of these nail cancer cases are caused by HPV, but Soleimani explained that he is “watching a growing number of cases across America.”
“It’s interesting that almost every skin cancer I’ve dealt with that involves fingers or toenails… has been associated with high-risk HPV, and that’s a concern, and that’s affecting younger patients,” he added.
He continued, “We rarely see high-risk squamous cell cancer resulting from this (nail cleaning), but I have treated half a dozen people who have suffered from this.”
Source: US Fox News.
