Category Archives: Plastic Surgery

The association between having lots of atypical moles all over your body and subsequent melanoma is well established. In a more recent prospective study the risk of moles on the extremities (arms and legs) was specifically looked at. Patients with more than 15 moles on their arms and legs had an almost 3 times risk […]

We already know that the extra UV exposure from indoor tanning increases your risk of skin cancer. New research now show that melanoma patients who had previously used indoor tanning had a much higher risk of developing a second melanoma and developed that second melanoma sooner than others. Approximately 65% of patients exposed to artificial […]

The fact that itch may be associated with internal malignancy has previously been suspected. A recent study looked back at over 16,000 adult patient seen at the Johns Hopkins Health System from 2013-2017. They compared those with itch vs those without. Patients with pruritus (itch) were significantly more likely to have concomitant malignancy than those […]

The use of “check point inhibitors” has revolutionized the approach to many advanced malignancies such as advanced melanoma. In fact this years Nobel prize was awarded to scientist who first developed this class of drugs. These drugs work by allowing the immune-system to see the cancer cells and so initiate an attack against this otherwise […]

Most patients with thin, early melanomas do very well, having a relatively low risk of disease spread or re-occurrence. However some of these “low risk” patients are not so lucky and end up with re-occurrence, or metastasis. In an effort to better predict which of the “low risk” patients were likely to be in this […]

Take a closer look at your eyes. What can your eyes tell you about your melanoma risk? Well we already know that people with light colored eyes, blue or green tend to have a higher risk of skin cancer in general. A recent study has shown that pigmented lesions on the iris (that’s the colored […]

Maybe red meat is not all bad! A recent study looked for a link between consumption of red and processed meat and melanoma. They used data from over 75,000 women and 48,000 men from the Nurse Health Study and Health Professionals follow up Study. In these groups a total of 1318 melanomas were identified. I […]

What is the link between cancer and Alzheimer’s? A little know fact is that there seems to be a decreased risk of Alzheimer’s disease (a common form of dementia) in patients with various cancers. A recent study looked looked for this link with skin cancers and found a surprisingly large effect. Looking back at data […]

When concerned about the possibility of skin cancer often the dermatologist can reassure the patient that the lesion is not worrisome, and save the patient the anxiety, scar and cost associated with a biopsy. However sometimes the lesion will be deemed suspicious enough to warrant a biopsy. There is both science and judgment involved in […]

You may have expected it, but now its confirmed, having a full body skin cancer screening exam by a physician increases the chances of detecting an early rather than late melanoma. But what you may not have realized is the power of your own “self exam”. By performing regular self exams patients can increase the […]