SKIN CANCER DETECTION

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33386, 19 November 1973, Page 6

SKIN CANCER DETECTION

(New Zealand Press Association} BOSTON. People can examine themselves now for a deadly form of skin cancer — particularly prevalent in Australia — using a method that researchers say can save many lives through early detection and treatment.

Doctors at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard Medical School say that they have refined the criteria by which malignant melanoma cancers I can be recognised with the i naked eye. j The doctors say that, with i very little training, doctors and lay people can dis- . tinguish these cancerous lesions from bruises, moles, and blood-blisters. And they say that if the lesions are detected early, surgical or radiation treatiment can cure many of (these cases. The report on recognising ' the malignant lesions appears in the “New England Journal of Medicine.” Accompanying the report is an album of colour photographs I to aid doctors in visually diagnosing the cancers. DEADLY FORM Dr Martin C. Mihm, Jun., the principal investigator in the study, said that malignant melanoma was one of the most deadly of the skin : cancers. The incidence of the disI ease, which mainly affects white people in sunny areas, | is 3.6 cases per 100,000 in

• females, and 3.8 per 100,000 lin males in the United I States. Dr Mihm said that > the incidence was seven i times higher in Queensland, s Australia, where many fair- ! skinned people had migrated from the British Isles. ! The study said that the ; signs which suggested malig- . nant skin change included [ variable lines of colour in the lesion, a notched, irregular border around the , affected area, and a lumpy ' surface. SIGNIFICANT COLOURS f Colours portending malignancy in a brown or black , lesion were shades of red, ' white, and blue, the report i said. Of all the colours, ‘ shades of blue were the ' most ominous. White areas ' within a pigmented lesion ’ were particularly suspicious. The report said that some types of melanomas did not have varied colours, but , were usually bluish-black, i bluish-grey, or bluish-red. Dr Mihm said that physf icians and patients should i examine any growth or discoloured area which appeared on the skin for no s, apparent reason and did not ,' heal in a few days, as a il bruise did.