Most of us keep up with blood pressure checks, cholesterol tests and the usual cancer screenings. A skin check is easier to forget, even though skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States. If you’re over 40, or you’ve spent a lot of time in the sun, we recommend adding a skin check to your yearly health routine.
Sun damage adds up
Your risk of skin cancer depends largely on how much sun you’ve had over your lifetime. Summers working outside count, along with years of hiking, gardening, golfing or time on the lake, and the sunburns you got as a kid. By our 40s, most of us have decades of exposure behind us. That’s when precancerous spots called actinic keratoses become more common, along with basal cell and squamous cell skin cancers.
Catching it early makes a big difference
The three main types of skin cancer are basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma. Basal and squamous cell cancers make up most cases and are usually very treatable. Melanoma is less common but more dangerous, because it can spread to other parts of the body.
Timing matters a lot with melanoma. According to the American Academy of Dermatology, the five-year survival rate is about 99% when melanoma is caught before it reaches the lymph nodes. Once it spreads, that number drops sharply.
Who should be extra careful
You may need to start skin checks earlier, or have them more often, if you:
- Have had skin cancer before
- Have a parent, sibling or child who had melanoma
- Have 50 or more moles, or moles with an irregular shape
- Have fair skin that burns or freckles easily
- Had frequent sunburns, especially when you were young
- Have used tanning beds
- Work outdoors or spend a lot of time outside
- Have a weakened immune system
Skin cancer affects every skin tone. In people with darker skin, melanoma is less common but is sometimes found later, so any new or changing spot is worth having checked.
A new tool at our Sylva and Hendersonville offices
Our Sylva and Hendersonville offices now use DermaSensor, an FDA-cleared handheld device that uses elastic scattering spectroscopy to analyze a suspicious spot in seconds. For patients 40 and older, it gives your provider one more piece of information when deciding whether a spot needs a dermatologist’s attention.
DermaSensor is always used along with a full visual exam. Your provider takes five readings of the spot, and the device returns one of two results. Your provider then weighs that result together with everything else they saw during the exam. It supports your provider’s judgment and doesn’t replace it.
If you have a spot you’re unsure about, mention it when you book or at your next visit.
For Hendersonville patients, get a full exam just down the street
If you’d like a full head-to-toe skin exam from a dermatology team, our sister practice DermaBlue is just down the street from our Hendersonville office at 120 South Grove Street. You can schedule with DermaBlue online or call (828) 685-2917.
Check your own skin between visits
You see your skin more often than any provider does. Try looking it over about once a month, and pay attention to any spot that is new, growing, bleeding, itchy or not healing. Dermatologists also use the ABCDE guide for melanoma:
- Asymmetry: one half doesn’t match the other
- Border: the edges are ragged or blurry
- Color: the color is uneven or has several shades
- Diameter: it’s larger than about 6 millimeters, though melanomas can be smaller
- Evolving: it’s changing in size, shape or color
Also watch for a mole that looks different from all your others, sometimes called the “ugly duckling” sign. If something changes or worries you, don’t wait for your yearly visit. Call us and we’ll take a look.
Protect what you’ve got
Even if you already have a lot of sun damage, avoiding more still lowers your future risk. Use a broad-spectrum sunscreen with SPF 30 or higher, reapply when you’re outside for a long time, and wear a hat. When the sun is strongest, stay in the shade if you can.
Patient Paperwork
Patient Portal
Pay Your Bill
