Skin Cancer Prevention Tips
Primary prevention
Primary prevention means adopting all the appropriate behaviors for protectimg the skin from excessive sun exposure by avoiding it and using protective clothing. The use of a sun screen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of 30 or higher is also recommended in particular for people with fair skin and freckles.
Secondary prevention
Secondary prevention, which means early detection of skin cancer and is obtained through regular expert checks and self-skin examinations.
Regular expert checks:
The expert physician will accurately check all your moles. Accuracy in the diagnosis of melanoma and other types of skin cancers (e.i.: basal-cell and squamous-cell carcinoma) is significantly improved by the correct use of dermoscopy. This is particularly true for small lesions, which might be difficult to be correctly diagnosed. Dermoscopy allows the detection of very small details which are not visible by a naked-eye inspection.
Self-skin examination:
All patients should also be encouraged to perform a self-skin examination of the moles every three months and return as soon as possible to the dermatologist in case they notice any skin lesion which may be new or changing in shape, colours or dimensions.
One simple but effective rule in the self-diagnosis is resumed in the ABCDE rule for diagnosis of melanoma
- A: asymmetry
- B: borders
- C: colours
- D: dimensions
- E: evolution or elevation
For patients with multiple atypical naevi or for people at high risk of developing a skin cancer (e.i.: family history of melanoma or non-melanoma skin cancer, fair skin and eye, freckles, large congenital nevi) photography and sequential digital dermoscopy are useful tools in order to get an accurate and early diagnosis. In fact, in patients at high risk of developing a melanoma, removing naevi does not completely remove the risk.