Experts Urge to Get Those Moles and Spots Checked During May’s National Skin Cancer Awareness Month

(KNSI) — CentraCare is urging people – even though it has been cloudy and too cold to really soak up the sun – to get checked for skin cancer.

Minnesota has one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the country, and Dermatologist Elizabeth Blixt says it mostly affects people as they age. She recommends a monthly self-check in the mirror and a regular skin exam by a physician. Blixt says you will be in and out fast.

“Five minutes per patient. We just do a really quick overall look at the body. We do this a lot and so we’re very experienced and experts in being able to detect if something is abnormal.”

Blixt says our immune systems begin to wear down as we age. Once compromised, our body can’t regenerate healthy skin cells as quickly as we once did, and basal or squamous cell cancers occur. The damage is often done decades before becoming sick, though.

“These patients who maybe grew up on a farm or grew up on a lake and they got a lot of sun damage as kids and, then, now they’re really careful and so they think, ‘Oh, I’m not someone who’s gonna get skin cancer.’ Actually the sun that causes skin cancer, the vast majority of it happens before the age of 18.”

Luckily, basal and squamous cell skin cancers are slow-spreading and not dangerous if caught early.

Melanoma is different, though and can be deadly if left untreated. It’s less common and based on genetics. Blixt says the cells that give us our pigmentation and help us tan can instead generate an aggressive form of cancer that spreads fast and tends to return. The cancer and a sizable chunk of skin nearby must be cut out to ensure it is gone.

Screenings can detect all three types.

CentraCare has experts available for screenings, but Blixt says a primary care physician can do it, too.

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