Keloids are abnormal overgrowths of scar tissue that can develop on your chest or any other part of your body that experiences a skin injury. They occur most frequently in African-Americans and young women. While keloids are not typically medically serious, they can cause significant physical discomfort and unwanted cosmetic changes in your appearance.
Keloid Basics
Keloids most frequently occur on your upper chest, as well as your shoulders, according to the New Zealand Dermatological Society. While they are technically a form of tumor, they never turn cancerous. Individuals with susceptibilities to keloid formation can develop overgrowths from a wide variety of major and minor skin injuries, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's Medline Plus reports, including burns, chickenpox, surgical wounds, traumatic physical injuries and minor bites or scratches.
Keloid Formation
When you experience a skin injury, repair of the injury site is performed by both your skin cells and cells in your underlying connective tissue called fibroblasts, according to the American Osteopathic College of Dermatology, or AOCD. Typically, scars form when your fibroblasts produce special fibers that close and seal your injured skin. In individuals with a tendency toward keloid development, the fibroblasts that seal an injury keep multiplying after they perform their job, leading to the growth of large amounts of excess scar tissue. Roughly 10 percent of the American population has a susceptibility to this abnormal scar tissue formation, according to the AOCD
Keloid Characteristics
Medline Plus lists potential characteristics of a keloid on your chest or elsewhere on your body that include a ridged or lumpy appearance and a color that is pink, red or closely matched to the normal color of your flesh. As your keloid forms and grows, you may experience considerable skin itching. In some cases, exposure to sunlight within 12 months of scar formation can significantly darken a keloid, even when compared to other tan skin on your body. Sometimes, this darker pigmentation remains as a permanent keloid feature.
Treatment
In many cases, you will not require treatment for a keloid scar, Medline Plus notes. If you do need treatment, potential options for reducing the size of a keloid include a freezing technique called cryotherapy, conventional or laser surgery, injection with medications called corticosteroids and radiation treatments. If you have a known tendency toward keloid formation, your doctor may be able to prevent tissue overgrowth by treating the site of an injury with paper tape, silicone gel pads or pressure dressings, the AOCD reports.
Considerations
Your keloids may shrink naturally over time and become less prominent without treatment, Medline Plus explains. If you have a keloid removed from your chest, it may eventually return. In some cases, surgical keloid removal eventually results in the formation of an even bigger new keloid. Depending on your personal circumstances, your doctor may need to perform a skin-sampling procedure called a biopsy to make sure a suspected keloid is not actually a form of cancer.
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