Spot Skin Cancer Early

Here’s How You Can Perform a Self-Exam

The good news is when skin cancer is caught and treated early, it’s highly curable. The even better news? In its early stages of development, you are the one with the best chance of spotting any changes and letting our team know.

What can you do?

That’s simple and it only takes a few minutes – just examine your skin head-to-toe every month.

What To Look For

Because skin cancers appear in many shapes and sizes, it’s important to know the warning signs.

If you see a new spot, a changing spot or a spot that just doesn’t look right, it could be skin cancer.

This includes:

A growth that increases in size and appears pearly, transparent, tan, brown, black or multicolored.
A mole, birthmark or brown spot that increases in size, thickness, changes color or texture, or is bigger than a pencil eraser. Learn more about the ABCDEs of melanoma.
A spot or sore that continues to itch, hurt, crust, scab or bleed.
An open sore that does not heal within three weeks.

Performing Your 8-Step Self-Exam

Step 1: The face

Examine your entire face especially your nose, lips, mouth and ears — front and back.

Step 2: The scalp

Thoroughly inspect your scalp, using a blow-dryer and mirror to expose your skin. Another good idea: Get a friend or family member to help, when you can.

Step 3: The hands, wrists and forearms

In this step you’ll check your palms, back of your hands, between your fingers as well as under your fingernails and working your way up from here, including your wrists and the front and back of your forearms.

Step 4: The arms

Standing in front of the full-length mirror, begin at the elbows and scan all sides of your upper arms. Don’t forget your underarms.

Step 5: The torso and up

Here you will want to focus on your torso working your way up to your neck. Lift the breasts to view the undersides and check your armpits too.

Step 6: The upper back

With your back to a mirror, use the hand mirror to inspect the back of your neck, shoulders, upper back and any part of the back of your upper arms you could not examine in Step 4.

Step 7: The lower back

Still using both mirrors, scan your entire lower back, buttocks and backs of both of your legs.

Step 8: The legs

Sit down; prop each leg in turn on another stool or chair. Check the front and sides of both your legs, thighs and shins. Then, finish with your ankles and feet, including soles, toes and nails (with any nail polish removed).

Normal Moles vs. Atypical Moles

Certain moles are at higher risk for changing into cancerous growths such as malignant melanoma, a more serious form of skin cancer. Moles that are present at birth and atypical moles have a greater chance of becoming cancerous. That’s why detecting and treating cancerous skin growths early is so important. Why? Because when caught early the treatment is usually highly effective with an extremely high cure rate.