There is often a lot of speculation about alternative therapies and their place in treating various medical conditions. For skin cancer, one of the most prominent alternative therapies is Black Salve, commonly marketed as Cansema. The Therapeutic Goods Association (TGA) prohibited the sale of Black Salve in Australia in 2012 due to a lack of [...]
Can you detect the subtle changes to your skin that might be an early warning sign of melanoma? While melanomas tend to change noticeably in size, shape or colour; it can be difficult to monitor our own skin for these changes because sun spots can appear in places that are tricky to see and because [...]
Sunscreen is undoubtedly one of the most effective ways to protect your skin from sun damage. In North Queensland, it’s recommended that we all apply sunscreen with SPF30 or higher as part of our morning routine and reapply every 2 hours or after swimming or sweating heavily. That might seem like a lot of sunscreen, [...]
Non-melanoma skin cancer (also now know as keratinocyte cancer) causes 560 deaths in Australia each year. Responsible for approximately 939,000 treatments per annum, Kerotinocyte Cancer cost Australian tax-payers approximately $703 million in diagnosis, treatment and pathology services in 2015 alone. Invited by the Cancer Council of Australia to be on the working party that would [...]
When people undergo surgical removal of skin cancer, they’re often concerned about the scarring that may be left behind. While common sense tells us that it’s certainly much better to have a scar than a malignant spot, we also understand that unsightly scarring can have a real and significant impact on a person’s self-confidence. The [...]
Australia leads the world in deaths from skin cancer. That’s a scary statistic and, with our high levels of UV and our culturally ingrained love of the sun, it’s easy to see how the diagnoses can quickly stack up. However, skin cancer doesn’t have to be fatal. In almost every case, early detection and simple [...]
Skin cancers are sneaky and can come in many different guises, making them hard to identify with the naked eye. However, self-skin checks remain an important weapon in the battle against skin cancer and there are some distinguishing features that every North Queenslander should be aware of when looking at their skin spots. You should [...]
From time to time concerns are raised about the use of nanoparticles in sunscreen and whether or not sunscreen is harmful. To date, there has been no evidence to suggest sunscreen has a negative impact on our health. However, as we are always encouraging our patients to apply sunscreen daily, I wanted to take some [...]
Did you know that there’s now an effective way to remove innocent moles, skin tags and unwanted raised blemishes without the need for sutures and with little-to-no scarring? If you have raised spots that undermine your self-confidence or catch on your clothing, you might like to consider removing them using Radiofrequency ablation. What is Radiofrequency [...]
Did you know that most skin cancers we find are not detected by our patients during their personal skin checks? This means that while self-checks are a very important tool in detecting and treating skin cancer, they should not replace a professional check by a trained skin cancer doctor. During a full skin check, a [...]
