With something as life-threatening as skin cancer, widespread misconceptions and knowledge gaps must be quashed to keep people safe in the sun.

In a survey of 5,000 people by the British Skin Foundation, 36 per cent did not realise that skin cancer could be fatal, while 56 per cent did not know malignant melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer, could spread to other parts of the body.

The reality makes stark reading. New figures from Cancer Research UK reveal that melanoma incidence rates have soared by 45 per cent in the last 15 years.

“Every day, seven people die from skin cancer,” says Dr Bav Shergill spokesman for the British Skin Foundation. “It is one of the fastest rising malignancies in the UK.”

And even though non-melanoma skin cancers are less likely to metastasize, they are disfiguring, usually occur in highly visible places, such as the face, lower legs, head and back, involve excision and frequently reoccur,” says Clare O’Connor, Boots scientific suncare adviser.

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Published via Raconteur, August 6, 2019