The expert team at Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center is here to assist you with skin cancer screenings on an annual basis or as needed.
Yes. If you have inherited risks such as more than 50 moles or a family history of melanoma, spend a lot of time in the sun or have received radiation treatment, we recommend an annual, full-body skin cancer screening exam. A screening exam is a visual inspection of your skin from head-to-toe conducted by a doctor.
Along with regular exams from your doctor, you can do a self-scan at home. Being familiar with your skin will help you notice changes as well as new growths. Simply follow the ABC’s of skin cancer:
Be sure to let your doctor know if you have any sores that don’t heal or see a change in a mole or freckle.
If during your screening, your doctor finds something suspicious, the next step is to get a biopsy. This includes partial or full removal of the suspicious mole or lesion on the skin to be tested in a lab.
When detected early, the cure rate for skin cancer is nearly 100 percent.
Staging of basal cell skin cancers is rarely needed because these cancers almost never spread to other parts of the body.
The stages of melanoma are determined by the thickness of the tumor and whether or not the cancer has spread to other parts of the body.