Coupled with a yearly skin exam by a doctor, self-examination of your skin once a month is the best way to detect the early warning signs of basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and melanoma, the three main types of skin cancer. Look for a new growth or any skin change.
What you'll need: a bright light; a full-length mirror; a hand mirror; two chairs or stools; a blow-dryer.
Examine head and face, using one or both mirrors. Use blow-dryer to inspect scalp.
Check hands, including nails. In full-length mirror, examine elbows, arms, underarms.
Focus on neck, chest, torso.
Women: Check under breasts.
With back to the mirror, use hand mirror to inspect back of neck, shoulders, upper arms, back, buttocks, legs.
Sitting down, check legs and feet, including soles, heels, and nails. Use hand mirror to examine genitals.
Melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, is especially hard to stop once it has spread (metastasized) to other parts of the body. But it can be readily treated in its earliest stages.
source- The Skin Cancer Foundation
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
The most important thing is to find potential melanoma lesions early while removal can be a cure. People at high risk (especially if you have already had a melanoma) need to follow their skin closely. The traditional ABCD criteria can help guide risk assessment. A, for asymmetric lesions; B for moles with irregular Borders; C, for colors in the lesion; and D, for diameter greater than the tip of an eraser.
More recently physicians have recognized the importance of moles that are new or getting larger in predicting high risk lesions. They have now added E for enlargement to the criteria and many recommend following the ABCDE’s. Having reliable information on whether a mole is changing increases the specificity of the skin exam and could therefore reduce the over-diagnosis of suspicious lesions.
Although dermatologists almost always ask if you have any new or changing moles most people cannot accurately answer that question (particularly those with numerous moles and the greatest risk). One way to approach this problem for people at high risk is to use Total Body Photography to document the moles on your body. However, this is an expensive procedure (often costing $400-$600) that most insurance providers will not cover.
There is now an inexpensive software program that allows people to use their own digital cameras at home to take their own body images at different time intervals (maximizing privacy). The images can be scaled and aligned and compared using a personal computer to allow for the efficient recognition of new or growing moles. This software was developed from funding provided by the National Cancer Institute and can be obtained by going to the website www.dermalert.com
Skin cancer, not a question of if, but a question of when. I am really careful, but I am so white and I live in Florida!
Post a Comment