Healthy Skin Tour begins cross-country trek to screen and educate

This month, the Skin Cancer Foundation’s annual Road to Healthy Skin Tour will begin a journey that will take it to 80 malls, universities, and other locations.

The tour, sponsored by Rite Aid and Aveeno, provides the latest skin cancer information as well as full-body skin cancer screenings by local dermatologists. More than 3,700 potential skin cancers and pre-cancers have been discovered through the Road to Healthy Skin Tour, including 199 suspected cases of melanoma.

“Skin cancer is the most common of all cancers, afflicting more than 2 million Americans each year, and the number is rising rapidly,” said Perry Robins, MD, president of The Skin Cancer Foundation. A recent study published in the Archives of Dermatology found that many doctors do not provide full-body skin exams because of time constraints, the need to treat a competing illness, or reluctance on the part of patients to undress for an exam.

Another study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatololgy, found that patients who delayed seeing a physician for any reason after spotting a suspicious growth had significant increase in the size of their tumors.

The tour, which is conducted in a 38-foot customized RV, will stop in 25 states throughout 2011. For information, visit www.SkinCancer.org/tour.