Did you make any resolutions to be healthier this year? Maybe you resolved to eat better or get moving more frequently. If you want to enjoy a long and healthy life, there’s another wellness-focused resolution that you should add to your list for 2023 and beyond.
Fortunately, it’s an easy one. With a single visit to your dermatologist each year, you can go a long way toward protecting yourself against the most common type of cancer in the United States: skin cancer.
We offer quick, painless skin cancer screenings at our LUX Dermatology offices throughout California and Nevada. With this annual check, our team can catch skin cancer early, making it much easier to treat.
If you want a meaningful but easy way to reduce your cancer risk in 2023, add an annual skin cancer screening to your list of resolutions.
Skin cancer can take many forms, but one thing is always true: the sooner you spot the problem, the easier it is to address it.
If you catch skin cancer early — when the cancerous cells are still confined to one area — all you need to do is remove that patch of skin. When the cancerous cells are still confined to a small area, you have a 99% chance of survival. As it spreads, though, the five-year survival rate goes down.
In its early stages, we can treat skin cancer with minimally invasive options like radiofrequency ablation or electronic brachytherapy (eBx).
As the cancer grows, though, it requires more involved treatment. We also offer options like surgical excision and Mohs micrographic surgery. With these options, we can remove larger cancerous growths, but you will have to deal with a minor procedure.
Long story short, skin cancer is extremely common, but if you get screened for it regularly, you can almost always address it before it becomes life-threatening.
If this has you motivated to schedule an annual skin cancer screening, you might be wondering what will happen at that appointment. Let’s go through a quick overview.
First, we recommend checking your skin at home before you visit. That way, you can show us anything that’s new or unusual. Come to your appointment with no nail polish (skin cancer can hide on your nail beds) and your hair down so we can check your scalp.
Getting checked for skin cancer is completely pain-free and usually takes about 10 minutes. All it entails is one of our skin cancer specialists looking at your skin to check for any potentially problematic areas.
If we do find anything suspicious, we order a biopsy to determine if the cells are cancerous.
To defend yourself against the most common type of skin cancer in the country, call any of our offices in California or Nevada, or book an appointment online today.
