Unusual symptoms can be red flags in more common forms of melanoma and skin cancer. For Tamara Dawson, who was diagnosed with stage four metastatic melanoma in 2015, the first sign was abdominal pain which a GP initially thought was a muscle strain.
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“I went to have a CT scan and a biopsy, and that’s when I found out that I had melanoma that had spread to my liver,” Dawson said. “It’s on all of us to get to know our body, know our skin, but know when something’s not right.”
Dawson is now cancer-free and has since established the Melanoma and Skin Cancer Advocacy Network (MSCAN). On Wednesday, at Parliament House in Canberra, the charity will launch a new scorecard to track Australia’s progress on skin cancer prevention, early detection, and treatment. It will be updated every five years.
Melanoma survival rates have improved dramatically in the last five years despite more people being diagnosed every year. But mortality rates for the most common skin cancers – sometimes called keratinocyte cancers or non-melanoma skin cancers – have not improved in the same period, hovering around three deaths for every 100,000 Australians.
Because these cancers are mostly removed by GPs, it is unclear how common they are nationwide. Dawson said a national surveillance strategy was crucial.
Boosting sun-protective behaviour in secondary schools, improving and tracking the availability of shade in public spaces, and encouraging organisations to schedule outdoor sports at times of the day with lower UV were all areas where Australia has made minimal progress in the last five years, the scorecard noted.
“The teenage age group is quite challenging to get the message through about sun protection,” said Professor Victoria Mar, the director of the Victorian Melanoma Service at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne.
Ellie Bowley: “I just want to take Mum’s legacy and make it something.”Credit: James Brickwood
Skin cancer experts have repeatedly raised concerns that myths about sunscreen and the glorification of tan lines are eroding progress among a generation too young to remember the “slip, slop, slap” campaign.
“Unfortunately, there’s a lot of misinformation around sunscreens,” Mar said. “It tends to flare up every so often, and we’re going through a bit of a flare-up at the moment.”
Bowley said it was frustrating to see many people turning their back on simple sun safety measures that reduced their risk of getting preventable forms of the cancer that claimed her mother’s life.
“I’ve experienced first-hand what melanoma can do to someone, and I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy,” she said. “No tan is worth the risk of melanoma or skin cancer and what it does to the body.”
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