I apologise for my knee jerk reaction; much of what AD wrote is not bullshit, despite the method of delivery, but she does not give the full picture.
aliasdictus Sun 19-Sep-10 23:29:02
'Oh come on, lets be a little bit sensible about this. Melanomas are not the 'most deadly', there are about 10,000 cases a year but only 2000 deaths, half of these are in the over 70s.'
No, more than half are younger than 70.
'Survival rates are amongst the highest for any cancer and over 90% women survive beyond 5 years'.
This would include those diagnosed at a very early stage. Unfortunately with melanoma as soon as it is deep enough to invade the vascular or lymphatic system, ie about a millimetre deep, it's highly likely to recur and chances of survival go way down.
'Fortunately for the rest of us, you are NOT entitled to a referral, your GP will decide if it is necessary. The trouble is that skin clinics are full to the brim with people convinced by their friends and the media that they have significant and deadly moles. Just get a grip.'
Apart from your abhorrent attitude and extreme rudeness, you seem to imply that a GP is able to diagnose melanoma instantly. Dermatologists get it wrong all the time let alone GPs; the only way to be certain is through biopsy. So it is prudent for anything vaguely suspicious to be referred immediately. My father recently had a 2 week referral for a similar problem; the gP had no idea if it was serious and in fact doubted it was but there is a protocol and it was followed.
Further, my 34 year old best friend died in March, 9 months out from diagnosis with melanoma, which was misdiagnosed by her GP for a YEAR before she was referred.
'If you want something to obsess about consider the really likely causes of death like bowel cancer 40,000 pa, heart attacks 100,000 pa, strokes 75,000 pa. Need I go on?'
Yes but the OP has a MOLE she is concerned about. Are you saying that she's stupid to be worried about it, because she's more likely to die from a different sort of cancer to melanoma?
She's not 'obsessing' either.
Each year more than 2,500* people die from skin cancer in the UK.
Most skin cancer deaths, almost 2,000* each year, are from malignant melanoma.
The majority of non-melanoma skin cancer deaths are in elderly people.
More than half of all people that die from malignant melanoma are younger than 70.
Worldwide, around 46,000 people died from malignant melanoma in 2008.
There are two main types of skin cancer: non-melanoma skin cancer, which is very common, and malignant melanoma which is less common but more serious.
More than 10,300* cases of malignant melanoma are diagnosed in the UK every year.
Malignant melanoma incidence rates in Britain have more than quadrupled over the last thirty years.
Like most cancers, skin cancer is more common with increasing age, but malignant melanoma is disproportionately high in younger people.
Almost one third of all cases of malignant melanoma occur in people under 50.
Malignant melanoma is the second most common cancer in young adults (aged 15-34) in the UK.
Malignant melanoma is almost twice as common in young women (up to age 34) as in young men, but more men die from it.
Over the last twenty-five years, rates of malignant melanoma in Britain have risen faster than any other common cancer.
If current trends continue, it is anticipated that there will be around 15,500 cases of malignant melanoma diagnosed per year within the next 15 years.