Maybe it’s time to take a closer look at yourself.
One in five people develop skin cancer during their lifetime. Are you the one?
You’re a candidate if you have pale skin, endure excessive (or unprotected) exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet rays, have a family history of skin cancer, experienced severe sunburn or have numerous or unusual moles.
“Everyone should periodically check their skin or have someone assess those hard-to-view areas of the body for signs of skin cancer,” says Dr. W. Richard McQueen Jr., an internal medicine specialist at Hartford HealthCare Medical Group. “The earlier it is detected, the better the outcome.”
Here’s what to look for:
- Any change, particularly the size or color of a spot, mole or growth.
- Sores that never heal.
- Oozing, bleeding or scaliness.
- Color that spreads beyond the border of a growth.
- Tenderness, itching, pain or other new sensations.
Let’s say you find a suspicious mole or lesion on your body. Dr. Robert Piorkowski, a surgical oncologist at Hartford Hospital, says to follow the ABCs.
- A: Asymmetry. “If you draw a line through this mole,” he says, “the two halves will not match.”
- B: Border. “The borders of an early melanoma tend to be uneven,” he says. “The edges may be scalloped or notched.”
- C: Color. “Having a variety of colors is another warning signal,” he says. “A number of different shades of brown, tan or black could appear. A melanoma may also become red, blue or some other color.”
- D: Diameter. “Melanomas usually are larger in diameter than the size of the eraser on your pencil (1/4 inch or 6 mm),” he says, “but they may sometimes be smaller when first detected.”
- E: Evolving. “Any change — in size, shape, color, elevation, or another trait, or any new symptom such as bleeding, itching or crusting — points to danger,” he says.
Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States, with more than 5.4 million non-melanoma skin cancers treated in 3.3 million people each year, according to the American Cancer Society. That’s more than the reported cases of breast, colon, lung and prostate cancers combined.
Skin cancer hits all age groups. (For melanoma, the most common age group is between 15 and 24 years old.)
“The most important thing you can do is be proactive,” says Dr. Piorkowski. “Schedule yearly appointments with your doctor to have a full body scan, maintain vigilant self-body checks and notify your doctor if you discover something suspicious.”