As we prepare to spend more time
outside in the Great Idaho weather,
it's also a great time to talk
about protecting ourselves and
our kiddos from skin cancer.
I spoke to an ecologist doctor Gordon,
with Saint Alphonsus to learn more.
Doctor Gordon is so good to see if the
weather is warming up a little more.
Skin is showing when we head outside,
so let's talk about our skin health.
First of all, what is Melanoma
and what's its impact here in
our region? Yeah,
so these are important questions.
Melanoma is a skin cancer and we think
about the one that really matters.
Miss arises from the deep layers of
our skin and has the potential to
really spread to any part of the body.
When we think of how it
impacts our community,
we think about how often do we see it,
and we recently learned that
working with the Oregon Health and
Sciences University and we found
it's in the top five cancers that
we diagnose here in our region.
Wow, OK, so help us understand
who is at greater risk
of getting Melanoma.
Yeah, so first question,
we don't think about other family members
or those costs that have Melanoma,
because that might be a sign that
it may not be genetic or inherited.
But maybe there's common.
Activities or lifestyles that
putting that person at risk.
These tend to be people who have a fair
complexion or they burn easy in the sun.
On another group might be those
who are immune compromised,
whose immune systems,
either by medications they're on
or certain conditions prevent their
immune system from controlling
cancers or identifying them cake.
And we actually prevent Melanoma.
There's some things we can do
to prevent kind of injury from
the sun and the UV damage.
Those are avoiding that time of
day when the sun is most intense
user between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM.
That might get extended a bit
longer and are warm summer months
and being at a northern latitude.
Other things could be putting on
sunscreen things with the SPF radium
of at least 30 and make sure it gets
time to set at least 15 minutes when
applying it and put it on again.
If you're out for more than two hours.
Not taking my boys river a lot of
water sports so if you're getting
wet or sweating alot you should
probably put it on a little
bit more often. Yeah, that double
application very important to and if
someone would like to be screened
for Melanoma, what do they do?
Tell us about that process.
Yeah so that is kind of being a familiar
with your body knowing that you're at
risk and that's where we use the lies,
the ABCD ease of skin cancer to help
find things that should have a closer
look by your provider or dermatologist.
So those they would be asymmetry B,
border regularity's,
see color changes D diameter,
something bigger than the end
of a pencil eraser or E.
Probably the most important thing
is things that evolve or change
overtime that catch your eye that
should be looked at more closely.
And if someone is diagnosed with
Melanoma, how's
it treated? If we can
prevent it from happening,
that would be best.
Next thing we'd like to do is catch
it early, so our best chance of
curing it is if we can see it as.
Dentist or early stages.
An typically dermatologists are
surgeon can remove those. Are there
any advancements in Melanoma treatment?
In those cases where melanomas
unfortunately spread to other parts of
the body and surgery isn't the answer,
we do have some medicines
available in the last 10 years.
We've had advances in immune therapy in
which we can rely on immune system to
control Melanoma for a long period of time,
and for some melanomas we have
some weaknesses we can take.
Advantage is where even pills can
control that mental Melanoma as well.
OK, and then
if people want to learn more, where
do they go? Doctor
Gordon, I can visit our website at Saint
Alphonsus outta work For more information.