May is Skin Cancer Awareness Month. Given the prevalence, it's a good time to remind yourself to practice prevention and be aware of warning signs as early detection increases chances for lifesaving skin cancer treatment.
basal cell carcinoma
While it might be tempting to use the two words interchangeably, there are distinctions to be made between melanoma and skin cancer.
"It can be very hard to identify a skin cancer, because hundreds — sometimes thousands — of harmless skin lesions might look unusual to the untrained eye," says Gyorgy Paragh, MD, PhD, Chair of the Department of Dermatology at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.