What are the risk factors of skin cancer?
Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in Australia with statistics showing that one in every two people will develop some sort of skin cancer in their lifetime.
Each year, over 380,000 Australians are treated for the disease and over 1,400 people die from it.
There are three main types, Basal Cell Carcinoma (BCC), Squamous Cell Carcinoma (SCC) and Melanoma.
BCC accounts for about 70-85% of all diagnosed skin cancers. It is the most common, but least dangerous form of skin cancer.
SCC accounts for about 15-20% of all diagnosed skin cancers and is more dangerous than BCC.
Melanoma is the least common of the three, accounting for less than 5% of all diagnosed skin cancers each year, but it is the most dangerous because it can spread to other parts of the body very quickly and further tumours can develop. It is the cause of most skin cancer deaths if not detected early.
One of the major causes of skin cancer is over-exposure to the sun. Most Australians will have developed irreversible skin damage by the time they are 15 years old. All it takes is one blistering sunburn to more than double a person’s risk of skin cancer later in life.
Fortunately, with current methods of treating the disease, skin cancer is now almost always curable if detected early enough.