Early diagnosis

The increasing rise in cases of skin cancer, including malignant melanoma, should make everybody aware of the importance of an early diagnosis. Early diagnosis is absolutely crucial for malignant melanoma, as treatment for advanced melanoma is rarely effective. Dermoscopy allows us to increase diagnostic accuracy reducing significantly the number of unnecessary excisions of benign skin lesions, sparing time, pain and cost.

Treatment

For non-melanoma skin cancer (mainly basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma) an early diagnosis is sensible, but not a matter of life or death. Early stages of non-melanoma skin cancer manifest as slightly raised red lesions covered by a scab.

These pre-cancerous lesions (actinic keratosis) may develop into basal or squamous cell carcinomas. When diagnosed in this stage, non-surgical treatment (laser treatment, photodynamic therapy, criotherapy) is easy, effective and also cosmetically acceptable (no scarring).