You may have also read on our wall, or on Twitter, that we’re going to be accepting appointments at our MOBILE clinic, arriving in San Francisco the week of October 10th. Please share this with all your friends and loved ones in the Bay Area as we bring the most advanced detection services to the West coast.  Call 1-877-MOLESAFE (1-877-665-3723) to schedule an appointment there…or at any of our permanent clinics in six locations around the country.

If you can’t make it to one of our clinics, do continue to practice self-exams and book your annual examinations with your dermatologist.

MelApp from Health Discovery on iTunes

If you’ll be attending the AAD next weekend (American Academy of Dermatology) we hope to meet you.  Please look for me, Dr. Richard Bezozo as well as Dennis Favazza – MoleSafe’s Director of Business Development, and Maddie Pallamary, RN.  We’ll be at the conference, taking place Aug 4-6 at the Hilton Hotel in NYC — Booth # 330.  Please come by and let’s talk in person about MoleSafe and our leading edge diagnostic tools.

Finally, in other news, there’s another way to remember your ABCDEs! Similar to the app we reported on a couple of months ago you can use your iPhone now in the meantime with MelApp to share images of your moles with your doctor, along with a helpful reminder of exactly what to look for on your skin — and the skin of a loved one.

And area readers may have seen a profile of yours truly, which ran on NJ.com on Sunday.  I share this because it enabled me to explain the reason I’m passionate about MoleSafe, and how it came about.

More importantly, it hopefully brought a little more awareness about this important screening technique to more people.

There’s been more exciting news in the area of Melanoma research and treatment.  I’ll share that later this week….

Next, what better time than Mother’s Day to thank moms like the Walters sisters who now also ensure they practice safe sun exposure for their kids as well!  As a reminder, that includes having them play in the shade, using protective clothing, and applying sunscreen regularly.

Speaking of sun exposure, SpaFinders is in on the awareness path with a sun-exposure alert bracelet!  Much better idea than the “suntan turnover time alerts” we still hear on the radio some times…

Another way to make a “fashion statement” about melanoma is through the numerous items touting Melanoma Awareness which you can find at Zazzle.com, for example.

We applaud the AAD‘s “31 Days and 31 Ways” to Prevent and Detect Melanoma.  Check out each of the days of May for good tips and suggestions, as well as their list of locations for free skin cancer check-ups.  Of course, we believe that May is the best time — before summer kicks off — to get the most thorough exam possible using the latest high tech methods of screening for skin cancers and melanoma, and that is the methodology used by MoleSafe in the U.S. and MoleMap worldwide.

Here’s to a good, healthy month of May!

This nodular lesion is a squamous cell carcinoma. These lesions are seldom fatal but can be disfiguring. Credit: The Skin Cancer Foundation

The images are startling, clear, and come with specific explanations of the whys and whats that distinguish the moles and lesions in the photos.  They may be difficult for the average person to review, but I feel they are important as a way to increase awareness of what could be ignored or overlooked  and with this kind of education what could, just as the title promises, save your life.  Just as we felt about Dr. Oz and the “in your face” videos of skin cancers and prevention information that he shared, this photographic guide is worthy of a “Hat’s On” award for straightforward, helpful coverage of exactly what to look for in the variety of skin cancer presentations.

And yet again, here are those rules of thumb again for your skin self-exams and warning signs to heed:

• A skin growth that increases in size and appears pearly, translucent, tan, brown, black, or multicolored
• A mole, birthmark, beauty mark, or any brown spot that:
  • changes color
  • increases in size or thickness
  • changes in texture
  • is irregular in outline
  • is bigger than 6mm or 1/4”, the size of a pencil eraser
  • appears after age 21
• A spot or sore that continues to itch, hurt, crust, scab, erode, or bleed
• An open sore that does not heal within three weeks

Thanks to our friends at the Skin Cancer Foundation, you can take advantage of their 4th annual skin cancer screening tour, which kicked off again just last week.

The 2011 Tour will make an estimated 80 stops in 24 states. After kicking off in Jacksonville, Florida on March 11, the Tour bus, a 38-foot customized RV with two exam rooms, will travel around the country stopping in some new cities this year. The Tour reaches New York City just in time for Skin Cancer Awareness Month in May. The 2011 Road to Healthy Skin Tour will conclude in New Orleans on September 17.

Tour Route: Skin Cancer Foundation Screening Bus

So, here, there and everywhere (a line from another great song!) is an opportunity to look out for yourself and your loved ones; no excuses! Plan your checkup today.  You can even use their site to “tell a friend.” Please do; a life could depend on it.

There are two issues at play here.  The first is the need for improved detection of Melanoma.  As we’ve noted here repeatedly, the MoleSafe technique takes skin cancer  assessments and screenings to the next level, well beyond the “naked eye exam,” which, as I described again in my last post, is a good precursory practice between more rigorous screenings but is out-dated when used as the exclusive approach.  The second issue is that there is still the challenge in interpreting the results of biopsies of suspicious moles, no matter how they are discovered.

As the Duke article says,

Doctors typically use a light and a magnifying glass or tissue biopsy, where a pathologist removes suspicious skin cells and looks at them under a microscope, to spot signs of disease. But using a lens and a light is a “17th century” technique that is only 85 percent accurate, at best, and tissue biopsy is not much more reliable…

In 14 percent of biopsy diagnoses, pathologists would disagree on whether or not the sampled cells were cancerous, according to a 2010 study published in the Journal of American Academy of Dermatology. The statistic implies that two pathologists would have opposing diagnoses on 214,000 to 643,000 melanoma cases each year.

Since, as a result, many doctors will follow the “when in doubt, cut it out” philosophy, this new laser holds the promise of maximizing accurate diagnoses, and down the road perhaps being a promising pre-biopsy screening tool as well.

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In other screening news, Bloomberg’s BusinessWeek reported on a story posted in the Archives of Dermatology on the increased skin self-exams conducted by kidney transplant patients from good old-fashioned education and information. Compliance in self-exams jumped to 89% among those in the study group, resulting in a dozen patients actually spotting an area of concern and making an appointment with their dermatologist.

The patients in the intervention group were given printed educational materials to promote skin self-examination. The patients in the control group did not receive the educational materials. Follow-up revealed that patients in the intervention group were much more likely to perform skin self-examinations than those in the control group — 89 percent vs. 22 percent.

This just underscores the ongoing need for education and awareness.  We hope more physicians will take the time to educate ALL patients – high risk or not.

While dermatascopes and the analyses used at MoleSafe are the most effective in detecting skin cancers and Melanoma, being vigilant by starting with your own naked eye exam is important, too.  AND it’s important for doctors to mandate that as well.  Shockingly, only 59.6 percent of family practitioners and 56.4 percent of internists conduct regular full-body skin exams, compared to 81.3 percent of dermatologists. (We would like to know why it is not 100% of dermatologists, though.)

According to a story in Bloomberg Businessweek last month,

“The most common reasons for not performing this type of examination were patient embarrassment/reluctance, time constraints, and other patient illnesses.”

About half of the internists and family practitioners cited time constraints as an impediment to conducting the naked eye exams.

I find all those reasons unacceptable since taking five minutes is nothing compared to a diseases that takes lives.

Our post in 2009 here on Melanoma Updates publicized the suggestion that not only should medical students be trained in naked eye exams no matter their ultimate specialization, but asking your doctor to keep an eye open while checking your lungs and seeing your back, or seeing your legs while checking your reflexes.

So, show the love this year and start by checking yourself, check your mate, and check with your doctor.

While there are, sadly, many victims of skin cancers and Melanoma — hence the existence of Melanoma Updates and our goal of driving awareness and preventative actions,  Alethea is one who has been inspiring and very public about her battle with the disease.

Now that battle has faced a two-sided assault:  she has received news of some 10 brain tumors, and is also fighting to raise the funds to travel from Cyprus to Germany for more advanced treatments.  As a physician I can say that this kind of metastasis is unfortunately statistically common in Melanoma patients, and survival rates are statistically unsatisfying.  You can read more on brain metastases on the Skin Cancer Foundation Web site.

I can tell you I don’t know Alethea, and have not vetted her case or her cause, but between her Facebook page and very specific blog posts I find her story and attitude very compelling and worth the read… and perhaps a contribution.   That is a personal decision, and there are many worthy causes we could all support.  At the very least, I want to share her very human emotions in her latest post here, filled with reminders of what we’ve been touting at MoleSafe as well:

Getting hopeful with every passing day as it means a day closer to when I can start my treatment. I can’t wait till they start shrinking these darn things and I can start a normal life again.

No one teaches you in school or as you grow up what do to in these situations, there’s no break glass in case of emergency and there is no instruction manual on what to do in case you get brain tumours.  So I live every minute by the minute and make it through the day with all your wonderful help.

All I ask that you please please avoid sunbeds, and sunbathing. Please love the skin you are in. Milk bottle white, means you are alive and will be alive. Life is too precious.

Love the skin you are in.

Now, with six clinic locations in the United States – from Albuquerque to Savannah, it is hugely satisfying to know that we’ve helped thousands find peace of mind about an area of concern, or even prolonged or saved some lives via early detection of Melanoma.  And skim through our other past blog posts this past year and it’s clear the word about best practices in detection and skin cancer prevention is getting out there more and more.  Yet my wish for the New Year is to offer peace of mind and good health to thousands more, from all of us at MoleSafe around the country, as we continue to fight the good fight.

Thank you for sharing this blog with your friends and family — and for remembering that the new year is a good time to renew a commitment to regular skin cancer check ups!