Here are the Ps & Qs of skin cancer— as well as the ABCDEs:
- Asymmetry: one half of a mole may appear different from the other half.
- Borders: a melanoma may have irregular or blurred edges.
- Color: a cancerous lesion may have different shades of tan, brown, black, white, or even red or blue throughout.
- Diameter: a melanoma often has a diameter greater than 6 mm.
- Evolving: unusual changes in a mole or lesion can signify melanoma.
People with moles, or nevi, have the highest risk of developing skin cancer. Fair-skinned people with blue or green eyes and blond or red hair and light complexion also have a heightened risk, as does anyone with a family history of melanoma.
Americans rack up about 80 percent of their total sun exposure by their 18th birthday, according to the American Cancer Society. Anyone who has had three blistering sunburns during childhood faces increased risk of melanoma. “We also know that chronic sun exposure over a lifetime increases the risk of nonmelanoma skin cancers,” says Susan Swetter, director of Stanford’s Pigmented Lesion & Cutaneous Melanoma Clinic.
Advice about prevention boils down to common sense: Apply sunscreen whenever out of doors. Wear protective clothing, including wide-brimmed hats and long sleeves while in the sun. Protect eyes and lips from sun exposure.
But while it may be relatively easy to enforce that behavior in small children, teenagers present a challenge. “We see use of sunscreen drop off strongly as kids enter their second decade,” says Swetter.
She deplores bare skin exposure that puts teenagers at special risk, as well as tanning salons, which many youths believe—incorrectly—to be safer than the sun. The International Agency for Research on Cancer found a 75 percent increase in the risk of melanoma in people who had exposure to tanning salons before the age of 35.
Tanning is the body’s way of protecting itself, but there is, simply put, no safe tan.
