Understanding Skin Cancer Prevention
- Former Miss England and Celebrity Big Brother finalist Danielle Lloyd, 41, has been diagnosed with a form of skin cancer and is now urging others to be aware of any signs of the disease and seek medical advice when needed.
- According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), squamous cell carcinomas (SCC), basal cell carcinomas (BCC), and melanoma are the three most common types. People who spend much time in the sun unprotected or use tanning beds are most at risk for basal and squamous cell skin cancers.
- You should check your body for unusual spots or moles at least once a month. Any new spots or changes in size or color demand your attention.
- Wearing sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher, avoiding tanning beds, and avoiding direct sunlight during peak hours (10 am—2 pm) can help reduce your risk.
- Sun exposure is the most common cause of skin cancer, and tanning beds use high-intensity lamps that increase the risk of developing skin cancer even more dramatically.
The mom of five took to her Instagram story last week to share her shocking skin cancer diagnosis, according to Bang Showbiz, explaining in a video clip, “I don’t really know how to say this and I didn’t know whether to come on and say it but I feel like I have to raise awareness about this kind of thing happening to other people.
Read MoreLloyd, who resides in Birmingham, England, continued, “I just wanna raise awareness for anyone who thinks they’ve got something funny on their body, if they see a mole growing that’s not normal.View this post on Instagram
“Please please please go to your doctor. You just never, never know.”
The English media personality, who was on the fifth season of Celebrity Big Brother, added, “But yeah, just honestly, not what I expected today. And I suppose not what anyone expects, but please guys look after your skin.
“Stay off sunbeds, wear factor 50. Just look after yourself because you never know.”
Lloyd, who has three children with her ex-husband Jamie O’Hara and two children with her husband Michael O’Neill, then admitted how “shocked” she was to have received such a diagnosis.
Despite her worries, she praised the nurses with Macmillan at the hospital she’s getting treated at, noting that she would be getting a surgical procedure to remove the cancer and check if it has spread.
Although Lloyd has yet to inform the public on the specific type skin cancer she has, or what stage it is, that she is battling, it’s clear she has a strong support system and her family by her side through this unexpected health journey.
In an earlier Instagram post, she shared a photo of her husband and children, writing, “Family is the ultimate source of strength and resilience.
“Together, you can overcome any obstacle and achieve greatness. So glad I have the most amazing family love them unconditionally.”
View this post on Instagram
Tips to Protect Your Skin from Skin Cancer
As much as many of us enjoy spending lots of time in the sun during the spring and summer, we must remember that the sun can harm us. For most people, there are simple ways to significantly reduce your risk of developing skin cancer.
We asked dermatologist Dr. Dendy Engelman to provide the top five ways to protect your skin from cancer. Most of her recommendations are simple to follow and could save your life.
- Avoid the sun during peak hours, which are from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. If you are outside during those hours, Protect yourself from harmful sun rays.
- Cover your skin and eyes. A wide-brim hat and sunglasses will protect your face, the top of your head, your ears, and the delicate skin around your eyes.
- Wear an SPF of 30 or higher. Dr. Engelman also recommends reapplying every few hours or after excessive sweating or swimming.
- Get an annual skin check. You can check your skin for anything that looks out of the ordinary, but you should still get a yearly check to ensure you don’t miss anything. If you notice anything out of the ordinary between checks, schedule an appointment to talk to your doctor.
- Avoid tanning beds. If you feel like you’re just too pale, Dr. Engelman recommends a sunless tanner. “There’s absolutely no benefit to going to a tanning bed,” Dr. Engelman said.
How to Spot Skin Cancer
You should check your body for any unusual spots or moles on your skin at least once a month. Any new spots on your skin or changes in size or color demand your attention.
WATCH: Get Your Moles Evaluated to Rule Out Melanoma.
Changes to a mole you’ve had for a while or a new growth on your skin could be signs of melanoma, according to SurvivorNet’s experts. Though these marks are unlikely to be cancerous, you’ll want to keep an eye on them and inform your doctor about any changes you notice.
Melanoma is most likely to develop on sun-exposed skin, such as the face, neck, arms, and legs. Surprisingly, it might also develop in places that have never been exposed to the sun, such as the palms of your hands or soles of your feet, your eyes or mouth, or under your nails.
Helping You Navigate Skin Cancer and Prevention
- Yes, People Of Color Get Skin Cancer, And It Can Be Deadlier: These Sunscreens Are Made Specifically For Darker Skin Tones
- Cancer-Causing Chemical Found in Banana Boat Sunscreen Leads to Recall; How to Select the Right Sunscreen for Your Skin
- 3 Skin Cancer Myths, Busted: Can One Bad Sun Burn Cause Cancer?
- Signs of Skin Cancer Can Show Up On Your Nails, But Don’t Jump to Conclusions Just Yet
- Hairdressers in Canada Can Now Be Trained to Look for Signs of Skin Cancer; Understanding the Disease and How to Protect Yourself
SurvivorNet experts describe melanoma symptoms as:
- A sore that doesn’t heal
- Color that spreads from the border of a spot to the skin around it
- Redness or swelling that goes beyond the area of a mole.
- Itchiness, tenderness, or pain
- A change in the way the surface of a mole looks.
- Scaliness, oozing, or blood
The Risks of Tanning Salons
“Studies have shown that exposure to tanning beds increases the risk of skin cancer and ocular cancer,” Dr. Lynn A. Cornelius, chief of the Division of Dermatology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, previously told SurvivorNet. “It also induces changes that lead to premature aging of the skin. There is no ‘safe’ tanning bed.”
Just one indoor tanning session can increase the risk of melanoma by 20 percent and squamous cell carcinoma by 67 percent, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. And a study published recently in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, suggests that banning tanning beds among minors would prevent thousands of cases of melanoma in adolescents, along with millions of dollars in healthcare costs.
People who go to tanning salons significantly increase their risk of developing melanoma.
Although tanning bed use has declined in the past decade among all age groups, there are still millions of adolescents and adults in the United States that use them. In 2017, the most recent year for which the National Cancer Institute has statistics, an estimated 5.6 percent of adolescents used an indoor tanning device at least once during the previous year, and about 6 percent of adults ages 18 to 29 used a tanning bed at least once. The percentages drop significantly among older age groups.
According to the FDA, indoor tanning beds emit a type of UV ray, and UV exposure can increase the risk of skin cancer. (The sun also emits UV rays.)
The National Center for Biotechnology Information published a 2011 study by Yale Cancer Center researchers examining indoor tanning and the risk of early-onset basal cell carcinoma. The study concluded that tanning beds were a “strong risk factor.”
Tanning Beds vs. Sun Exposure
While the risks of unprotected sun exposure receive plenty of air time, there has been much less public education about the more harmful exposure to cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation (UVR) that shines through the clear acrylic shields in tanning beds.
“For the same amount of time spent in the sun, the current ‘bronzing’ tanning beds can expose an individual to several times the radiation that one would incur for the same amount of sun exposure,” Dr. Cornelius explained to SurvivorNet. “These lamps are high intensity.”
UVR consists of different wavelengths: UVC, UVB and UVA. The latter twoUVB and UVAare the predominant damaging wavelengths that filter through the atmosphere to the earth. According to Dr. Cornelius, older tanning beds primarily emitted UVB (the shorter wavelength UVR) while current models emit the longer wavelength UVA that penetrates deeper into the skin and increases the risk of skin cancer.
Dr. Cornelius adds that while the body has mechanisms to repair DNA damage, repeated exposure, or a high amount of exposure, can overwhelm the body’s reparative mechanisms and repair does not occur. “A mutation that is not repaired can cause unrestricted growth of the mutated cell, and ultimately cancer,” she says. “To this point, we see multiple patients in their 20s and 30s with melanoma and basal cell cancers who used tanning beds in their teens.”
What is Mohs surgery?
We’re delighted to see Danielle Lloyd is raising awareness for skin cancer and although she hasn’t specified what type of procedure she is getting done to check if the cancer has spread, Mohs surgery is a procedure many skin cancer patients undergo—It’s a microscopically-controlled surgery where thin layers of tissue (typically, skin cancer tissue) are removed until the surgeon reaches clear tissue.
“You’re able to remove a very conservative margin around the cancer and study it in essentially real-time,” Dr. Sumaira Aasi, Director of Mohs and Dermatologic Surgery at Stanford, told SurvivorNet in a previous conversation.
If, when the surgeon examines the tissue under the microscope, cancer is found, the surgeon goes back and removes some more tissue.
The idea is that by making the tiniest cuts and evaluating them microscopically, the surgeon knows for certain that all the cancer is out when the last piece of tissue proves to be clear. It is often done as an outpatient procedure with local anesthetic.
“The Mohs surgeon will take a conservative cut circumferentially around the cancer where we’re able to preserve healthy tissue,” Dr. Aasi explained. “We’re able to process the tissue and look at the cancerous tissue and know where there are still tumor cells persisting.
Dr. Aasi continued, “Because as the Mohs surgeon removes the cancer, it’s mapped out, and we can go back specifically to the areas where we see cancer cells and take, again, another conservative margin or amount of tissue.”
Questions to Ask Your Doctor
If you are diagnosed with skin cancer, you may have some questions for your doctor. SurvivorNet suggests some of the following to help you on your cancer journey.
- What type of skin cancer do I have?
- What treatment options exist for this type of cancer?
- Will insurance cover this treatment?
- Would treatment through a clinical trial make sense to me?
- What resources exist to help manage my anxiety because of this diagnosis?
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
