How to Spot Skin Cancer

Between doctor’s appointments, doing self-checks once a month is also recommended because spotting a suspicious mole promptly can save your life. “Early stage melanoma has a 98 percent five-year survival rate,” says Rebecca Hartman, M.D., director of melanoma epidemiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. When caught in time, the only treatment usually needed is removing the cancerous spot and the area of skin surrounding it so that no cancer cells are left behind.

Becoming familiar with the moles, freckles, and other spots on your skin gives you the best chance of noticing whether something has changed. Be sure to check the parts of your body that get little sun exposure, such as under fingernails and toenails, and on palms, lower legs, and the bottoms of the feet. Skin cancer may occur in these areas, too, especially in Blacks.

When examining your skin, Hartman says, “I tell my patients to be on the lookout for the ugly duckling. If a spot or patch of skin stands out because it doesn’t look like other spots, you should bring it to your dermatologist’s attention.”

The illustrations below outline the general warning signs to look for. However, it’s important to understand that “different people with different skin tones can get skin cancers that look different,” says Jenna Lester, M.D., assistant professor of dermatology and director of the Skin of Color Program at the University of California, San Francisco.

For example, basal cell carcinomas are often described as how they appear in white people, as having a pearly luster and being red or white. But in people of color, those growths may still have a pearly luster but be darker, even darker than their normal skin. The lesson? “Just because what you see on your skin doesn’t look like what they show in pamphlets, in textbooks, or on Google image searches, doesn’t mean that it is not something to be concerned about,” Lester says. “It could just mean that there is an underrepresentation of your skin tone. Always ask your doctor if you notice something unusual on your skin.”