Melanoma, expert: early diagnosis is essential

Some useful tips: mapping moles, reducing exposure to UV rays, wearing sweaters and hats. A preventive dermatological check is essential and, in the absence of risk,
with the innovative technology of the UltraPulse CO2 Laser it is possible to deal with both minor skin lesions but also deeper and more complex ones in a non-invasive way.

According to the latest data

According to the latest data from the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, melanoma, a form of skin cancer, has reached 100 worldwide in the last 10 years.000 new cases a year: an increase of about 15% over the previous decade. In Italy, the estimate of melanomas and the deaths attributed to them is around 7.000 cases a year. A clinical picture that some effects of the ongoing pandemic have even aggravated.

During 2020, in fact, melanoma recorded 14.900 new cases, up 20% on the previous year.

Important data relaunched by the #CheckYourSkin campaign!, which in the month of May intends to focus attention on the importance of prevention, essential for identifying and treating this form of skin cancer in time. This is what Dr. Marco Bartolucci, consultant at the Dermatology and Cosmetology department of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan and founder of the Sotherga aesthetic medicine clinic: “Identifying melanoma as early as possible is the main weapon in trying to reduce its mortality”.

Hence the idea of a health education campaign

Hence the idea of a health education campaign “to encourage people to be sensitive to regular mole checks”, explains Dr. Bartolucci. The result, always confirm the data of the ISS, is the improvement of survival: in 1960 only half of the melanoma patients was still alive 5 years after the first diagnosis, while today it is about 80% of them.

Mapping of the in and prevention. To fight melanoma, Bartolucci still suggests, it is necessary to “reduce risk factors”. That is, “Attention to exposure to UV rays, check the presence of many in, have maximum attention if you are, in particular, subjects with low phototype, therefore with light skin, freckles and light hair, check the familiarity for melanoma.

To protect ourselves we can act mainly on the first factor, that is to defend ourselves from the sun’s rays with clothing such as shirts and hats, and with the 50spf sun protection, avoiding exposure to the sun in the hottest hours “.

As for the treatment, it is first necessary to understand whether it is a simple (benign) mole or a melanoma, or a malignant lesion. Thanks to a thorough examination of the skin, carried out by an expert dermatologist, it is possible to distinguish the different skin lesions, allowing the doctor to remove non-dangerous skin lesions that represent an aesthetic disorder, in a non-invasive way, relying on new technologies of the latest generation.

These are interventions that in Sotherga are carried out thanks to UltraPulse CO2, an innovative laser with which it is possible to remove different types of non-dangerous lesions, without leaving scars or other types of results. Golden standard among laser technologies, UltraPulse CO2 is able to treat deeper than any other CO2 ablative aesthetic laser. Thanks to its versatility, it can treat wrinkles, acne scars or deep aesthetic lesions without distinction, as well as severe lesions.