A full skin check will take 10-25 minutes, depending on the complexity of your skin. Your privacy is assured throughout the skin examination with the use of a privacy curtain and drape.
A skin check requires using a specialised instrument called a Dermatoscope, or mole scanner, that allows skin cancer to be detected earlier than by a simple visual inspection.
Each lesion is categorised as one of:
One-third of patients attending our clinic for a routine skin check will require a biopsy, typically a small shave sample.
Checking your own skin is a good start but is not enough. However, the simple truth is that most skin cancer that we see were not raised as a concern by the patient.
The objective of a routine skin check is to diagnose skin cancer in its early stages. Treatment of small skin cancer will be quicker, cheaper and less invasive than treatment of large skin cancer.
Melanoma discovered at a routine skin check is likely to be easily treated ‘in situ melanoma, whilst melanoma diagnosed following patient concern is likely to be invasive. For this reason alone, a routine skin check in Queensland should be as routine as a visit to the dentist.
A skin screening program done in Germany called the SCREEN project saw over 360,000 citizens, over a one year period, participate in a skin check. Following this program, death from skin cancer fell by half over a five year period.
Dermoscopy equates to ‘mole scanning.’ The small handheld device looks like a magnifying glass with light. The typical hand-held instrument uses polarised light, allowing the doctor to see through the epidermis to spot clues that may indicate skin cancer.
The language of dermoscopy is complex, with hundreds of structures described. Mole scanning is not an exact science, but the expert incorporates various prediction tools with experience to reduce uncertainty.
A full skin examination combines analysis of individual lesions with a comparison between different lesions, like ‘spot the difference’ where each mole is viewed individually compared to other moles.
Three types of mole scanner are available depending on the situation – a handheld device, larger overview device, and a desktop device.
You will probably recognise the hand-held mole scanner if you have had a full skin check. The device allows the doctor to quickly view a lesion of concern.
We bought the latest Heine delta 30 in 2021. This portable dermatoscope is now used at the skin clinic for the initial examination of all lesions.
The device allows lesions of concern to be recorded onto the electronic health record.
A little technicality is that the device supports both ‘contact’ and ‘non-contact’ dermoscopy.
The Lumio Scanner provides 2x magnification of the skin through polarised lenses. The 40 LEDs provide a very bright and crisp overview.
The skin check typically starts using this scanner to identify discrete lesions that require further examination with the larger Mole Machine.
This is an excellent device for finding sunspots.
The D120 dedicated mole scanner has these features:
We now use the portable Heine Delta 30 for viewing and recording moles although D120 mole scanner can be helpful in mapping some types of mole.
There are over 50 skin cancer risk factors. You can still enjoy our fine SEQ weather but just be sun-sensible.
The strongest risks are:
There are well known acronyms such as ABCDE. Dr Beatty developed the HAND algorithm to emphasise the importance of Change:
Author: Dr Richard Beatty
Last Modified: 4/5/2021
First published: 27/8/2014
