Skin cancer tests spark alert
An alarming 132 suspicious lesions - 57 of them possible melanomas - have been referred for investigation by a skin screening clinic held at Cottesloe beach this week.
The five-day free clinic run by Melanoma WA and the Lions Cancer Institute screened 449 men and women, advising 78 people to have lesions investigated, including one person with four concerning spots. Melanoma WA founder Clinton Heal said that while lesions were only listed as "suspect" until proved, it was a higher proportion than expected.
"The numbers are pretty high - it's alarming - and it just shows the importance of our work and these screenings because you don't know if these people would have had them checked otherwise," he said.
"And the team found 57 potentially life-threatening lesions and they're the ones suspected of being melanoma."
The 31-year-old, who was diagnosed with advanced melanoma when he was 22 and was the 2011 WA Young Australian of the Year, said it was worrying that 201 of those checked, including many older people, had never been screened before. Others had not been checked for some time.
"It means 358 people had not been checked in the past 12 months, so that's not ideal," Mr Heal said. He said people of all ages had lined up to be checked, with almost equal numbers of men and women, and some commercial skin cancer clinics had reported being swamped with people wanting to get lesions further investigated.
Cottesloe was chosen for the event because melanoma is one of the most common causes of cancer in people aged 15 to 39.
Mr Heal said that while visiting the free screening several times in the past week, he was disturbed to see people with little covering baking themselves for hours on the beach.
He was worried the fear of sharks was also prompting people to spend less time in the ocean, with more on the beach "dipping their toes in the water".
"People seem to be spending more time lying on the beach and if they're not covering up, they're putting themselves at risk," Mr Heal said.
According to the WA Cancer Registry, more than 1100 melanomas were diagnosed in WA in 2012 and 147 people died of the skin cancer.
