How to Detect Skin Cancer

Video Transcript

"Hello I'm Dr. Loretta Ciraldo, a board-certified dermatologist and author of the book, Six Weeks to Sensational Skin. In this clip we're going to talk about how to detect skin cancer. And probably the single most important thing that you need to remember if you would really like to detect skin cancer at the earliest stages when it's really always treatable, is that you need to become a bit of a Sherlock Holmes and you need to start to perform a once a month skin self exam. And what that's going to involve is to just simply look in the mirror. And when I look in the mirror I always want to be sure that I pull my hair back and I look in the mirror and I expose my ears. I look underneath my chin and look adequately at my neck and all of this. The first day of every month is a very good time to be looking in the mirror. And obviously we need to look at areas that we can't see like our face, our back when you use a double mirror. When then we get to areas that we can see without the mirror, like our hands, what we're going to say to you is that we want you to be sure to look on the palms of your hands. Look between your fingers. Believe it or not but ladies we want you; I have nail polish on today; but the best way to do your once a month skin self exam is to take off your nail polish so you're looking underneath your nails. Because we do sometimes find skin cancers underneath the nails. We want you to look under your arms, everywhere on your body. If you do it once a month then what you're going to be looking for is any change, any new mole or anything that's bled. Any of these things we want you to call the dermatologist immediately and hopefully save yourself from getting any progressive skin cancer. This is Dr. Loretta Ciraldo."