In a recent incident, biting nails caused a student to have her thumb amputated after she developed a rare form of cancer which she believed was linked to biting her nails, according to reports by The Sun, Courtney Whithorn who started biting her nails after she was constantly bullied at, she happened to bite her thumbnail completely in 2014. After she turned 20 she began to notice blackening of her thumb and still kept it hidden for about four years. However, soon she was diagnosed in the month of July with a rare kind of cancer called the acral lentiginous subungual melanoma that reportedly could be caused due to severe trauma because of biting off her thumbnail. She had to go through 4 surgeries and despite several attempts, she had her thumb amputated. Here's a List of 10 Anti-Cancer Vegetables You Should Never Forget to Eat

What is Acral lentiginous Subungual Melanoma and Its Symptoms?

Usually linked with the fingers and toes, this type of cancer is really rare and has chances of going unnoticed for quite some time. According to a study, the type of cancer is described as- 'Acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM) is the fourth clinicopathologic variant of malignant melanoma. It occurs on volar surfaces of hands and feet, subungual sites, and fingers or toes. It is characterized by slow lentiginous radial growth and central plaque-like thickening, heavily pigmented tumour cells, markedly thickened papillary dermis, and diffuse reticular infiltration. Lesions are unusually large and, in most cases, thick and ulcerated.'

Many times the patients tend to not notice is for as long as 15 years. In a real-life case evaluated by a study 'A 61-year-old man presented with progressive nail pigmentation for 15 years, which was clinically highly suspicious for malignancy. Acral lentiginous melanoma was not detected in punch and longitudinal biopsy specimens, but en bloc excision tissue revealed melanoma.' While there are not many clear symptoms of this type of cancer, some of the symptoms are patches of discoloured skin- brown, black and red colours, etc. the smooth surface at initially turns thicker with an irregular shape ulceration or bleeding.

(References: Acral lentiginous melanoma. A clinicopathologic entity/ Acral Lentiginous Melanoma, Indolent Subtype Diagnosed by En bloc excision: A Case Report)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 07, 2018 12:17 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).