Thursday, October 29, 2009

Skin Cancer Video and Podcast

Skin Cancer Podcast


Skin Cancer Video:

Skin Cancer makes life more difficult for college student



Daniel Yates grew up in a military family, living in Hawaii as a child and was active in ROTC as a teenager.

For most of his life he grew up on a military base in Beaufort, S.C. where the Yates family frequently traveled the 30 minutes to the beach.

Yates, like most teens, didn’t think about the possibility of skin cancer while he swam, played tennis, ran track and drilled with ROTC without any skin protection.

In December of 2008, Yates was diagnosed with basil cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer that affects the outer layer of the skin.

Basal cell carcinoma and it affects at least 1 million people every year in the United States, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation.

Skin cancer is one of the biggest threats to human life in the United States, compared to heart disease or other forms of cancer.

Skin cancer is a concern to people of all ages, but it usually develops during childhood and teenage years, said Jill Simpson, family nurse practitioner at Crawford Health Services.

Sunburns and sun exposure in childhood and teen years increase the risks of getting skin cancer as an adult, Simpson said. Sun exposure includes any UV exposure whether it is outdoors or in a tanning bed.

Yates’s cancer not might have been found at all if he had not gone to go see dermatologist Dr. Karen Autio about a large red scar on his forehead.

A June 2009 article in "Health" magazine says suspicious looking moles and other blemishes need to be checked out because they might be cancerous.

The article says that basal cell carcinoma moles are generally pink or red and might scab or bleed.

In comparison, a normal mole is small, round, symmetrical and has an even coloring.

“When I was a junior in high school, I was being a stupid teenage boy and was playing skins paintball (paintball without any protective gear),” Yates said. “I was hit in the forehead and an angry red scar stayed there for years. It flaked, hurt and would flare up frequently. Little did we know that skin cancer was underneath.”

For years, Yates had gone to military doctors who thought nothing of the persistent scar and gave him creams to hopefully fade the scar.

The only doctor who took any notice about the bizarre scar was Autio.

She took skin scrapings and gave Yates a full body exam to find cancer cells in the scar. Autio found cancerous spots on his neck, back and nose.

"It is good that I thought to look at the scar," said Autio. "No other doctor had even considered skin cancer for the five years that Daniel had this scar. That really concerns me. His life could have been in danger if another ten or twenty years had gone by and the skin cancer had not been discovered."

Helen Yates, Daniel's mother, said that Daniel got several sunburns and had a dark tan when their family lived on a military base in Hawaii when he was about four years old.

People who have fair skin and hair and light colored eyes such as gray, blue and green, are more at risk to get skin cancer than those with darker features and complexions, according to both the Skin Cancer Foundation and a 2009 article in the "International Journal of Cancer."

Yates has both fair skin and blue eyes.

Basal cell carcinoma treatment is unique from other cancer treatments because it is relatively easy, though not painless.

The most common treatment is surgically removing the infected areas in the form of biopsies, according to a 2009 article in the "British Nursing Journal." This might cause scaring and disfigurement but has a low recurrence rate.

Topical creams, laser therapy and injections have helped to cure basal cell carcinoma, says the "British Nursing Journal."

Yates had to endure several painful surgeries, the worst being the removal of the area under the scar on his forehead and another area along the side of his nose.

“While they were removing the area from my forehead, the plastic surgeon told me that it was the process they used for people who wanted plastic surgery,” Yates said. “I have no idea why anyone would want to go through that just for looks.”

The surgeries helped to remove the cancer from Yates’s body, but it made his life anything but easy.

Helen Yates said that the surgeries were very difficult on Daniel, who is her oldest son. Not only was it taxing to have to go through the procedure, but sleepless nights followed along with throbbing pain and nights of nausea.

"This hasn't been a simple procedure of finding the cancer and cutting it out," Helen Yates said. "The recovery was almost as bad or worse than the actual surgery."

Simple activities like sleeping, turning his head and carrying backpacks put him in pain due to incisions on his neck and head.

Several people, friends and strangers, also questioned him about large scars, Frankenstein looking stitches and bulky bandages.

“I was in the restaurant Moe’s once and I had the cashier ask me ‘Dude, what happened to your head?’ I didn’t even know him,” Yates said. “I’m always tempted to say I was in a bar fight or something more exciting when people ask.”

He also was forced to miss a couple weeks of a swimming class in spring of 2009, because he couldn’t get the stitches wet.

Yates’s active outdoor life has slowed from caution and fear.

Instead of being able to walk freely around the beach or an amusement part in the summertime without concern, he now has to wear a hat and at least SPF 45 sunscreen.

“Every aspect of my life has been made more difficult in some way or another,” Yates said.

Doctors are fairly certain that he is cancer free, but he has to have a full body checkup every six months to search for any cancerous moles.

“I probably just got way too much sun exposure as a little kid and slowly mutated the basal cell carcinoma over time until it became aggressive around 9 months ago. Now the sun is my new worst enemy.”

Jill Simpson said some preventative tips to avoid skin cancer are to stay out of the sun during the times when it is strongest - between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

She also said to wear sunscreen, protective clothing that covers the skin and to regularly examine your skin for any changes.

Other ways to help prevent basal cell carcinoma are to add more vitamin D to your diet, according to a study done at Tufts University Health and Nutrition Letter.