BCC

BCC is an acronym that can refer to several distinct concepts across different domains. The most common meanings are related to email communication, medicine, and crystallography.

In email, BCC stands for blind carbon copy. When a message is sent with BCC recipients, those addresses receive a copy, but their addresses are hidden from the other recipients. This feature originated from the era of carbon paper copies and is used to protect privacy, minimize reply-all chains, or send messages to multiple recipients without revealing all addresses. However, BCC can be misused for concealment, and some email systems log BCC activity or rely on organizational policies to audit usage.

In medicine, BCC refers to basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer. It arises from the basal cells of the epidermis and is typically linked to cumulative sun exposure. Basal cell carcinoma is usually slow-growing and rarely metastasizes, but can cause local tissue damage if untreated. Treatment options include surgical excision, Mohs micrographic surgery, topical therapies, curettage with cauterization, or radiation, depending on the tumor’s size, location, and patient factors. Early detection generally leads to a high cure rate.

In crystallography and materials science, BCC denotes a body-centered cubic crystal structure. In a BCC lattice, atoms occupy the eight corners of a cube and a single atom sits at the center. The structure has a coordination number of 8, two atoms per unit cell, and a packing efficiency of about 0.68. It is characteristic of some metals and alloys under certain conditions and contrasts with face-centered cubic (FCC) and hexagonal close-packed (HCP) structures.

Other uses of the acronym vary by context, so BCC should be interpreted with reference to the surrounding material.