Are you at risk of skin cancer?
Are you a man over 55 from Queensland? We’ve got some bad news. According to a new study, your demographic accounts for the most non-melanoma skin cancers diagnosed in Australia.
Researchers from QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute analysed Medicare data and found that one in 14 adults over the age of 30 had at least one non-melanoma cancer cut out between 2011 and 2014, and half of those had more than one removed.
Over 183,000 skin cancers were removed in the four years examined, and it was discovered that rates in Queensland were almost twice the national average and nearly three times the average of Victoria and Tasmania residents.
“They’re typically older males; men over the age of 70, if they get one skin cancer they are really likely to get more,” lead researcher Professor David Whiteman told AAP.
“Our results show that by the age of 70 years, around half of all Australian men treated for skin cancer will have another excision within four years," Professor Whiteman said.
“These kinds of skin cancers are caused by chronic long-term sun damage and so the people who are getting them are usually in the 50s, 60s and 70s and the rates go up almost 10-fold with age, they rapidly rise with age,” Professor Whiteman added.
“So what you are seeing in the people who are currently in their 70s is the result of sun exposure they had 30, 40 and 50 years ago.”
Professor Whiteman is urging those who were exposed to the sun often when they were younger to have their skin checked regularly.
“Because the likelihood is that they’ll have more in the next couple of years and the sooner you can treat them the less the damage the patient incurs and the less likelihood there is a spread of the cancer."