According to the latest data from the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, melanoma, a form of skin cancer, in the last 10 years has reached 100,000 new cases a year in the world: an increase of about 15% compared to the previous decade. In Italy the estimate of melanomas and of the deaths attributed to them is around 7,000 cases per year. A clinical picture that some effects of the ongoing pandemic have even aggravated. In fact, during 2020, melanoma registered 14,900 new cases, an increase of 20% compared to the previous year. Important data relaunched by the #CheckYourSkin! Campaign, which in May intends to focus on the importance of prevention, essential for identifying and treating this form of skin cancer in time. This is what Dr. Marco Bartolucci, consultant at the Department of Dermatology and Cosmetology of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan and founder of the Sotherga aesthetic medicine clinic: “Identifying melanoma as early as possible is the main weapon in trying to reduce its mortality”.
Hence the idea of a health education campaign “to encourage people’s sensitivity to regular monitoring of moles”, explains Dr. Bartolucci. The result, the ISS data always confirm, is an improvement in survival: in 1960 only half of melanoma patients were still alive 5 years after the first diagnosis, while today about 80% of them are.
Mole mapping and prevention. To fight melanoma, Bartolucci again suggests, it is necessary to “reduce the risk factors”. That is, “pay attention to exposure to UV rays, check for the presence of many moles, be extremely careful if you are, in particular, subjects with a low phototype, therefore with light skin, freckles and light hair, check that you are familiar with melanoma. To protect ourselves, we can mainly act on the first factor, that is to defend ourselves from the sun’s rays with clothing such as sweaters and hats, and with 50spf sun protection, avoiding exposure to the sun during the hottest hours “.
As for the treatment, it is first of all necessary to understand whether it is a simple mole (benign) or a melanoma, or a malignant lesion. Thanks to an in-depth examination of the skin, carried out by an expert dermatologist, it is possible to distinguish the different skin lesions, allowing the doctor to remove skin lesions that are not dangerous and represent an aesthetic disturbance, in a non-invasive way, relying on new and latest technologies. generation.
These are interventions that in Sotherga are carried out thanks to UltraPulse CO2, an innovative laser with which it is possible to remove different types of non-dangerous lesions, without leaving scars or other outcomes. Golden standard among laser technologies, UltraPulse CO2 is able to treat deeper than any other CO2 ablative aesthetic laser. Thanks to its versatility, it can indistinctly treat wrinkles, acne scars or deep aesthetic lesions, and even severe lesions.