Melanoma screening

• A quick guide to what's on this page
• The need for an accurate test
• Education programmes
• Examining your moles
• People at risk of melanoma

Before screening for any type of cancer can be carried out, doctors must have an accurate test to use. The test must be reliable in picking up cancers that are there. And it must not give false positive results in people who do not have cancer.

At the moment there is no general screening programme in the UK for malignant melanoma, to examine everyone for abnormal moles. This would take up a great deal of time and money. And it would mean that many people would have unnecessary surgery. It does not make sense to screen people who are not at risk of malignant melanoma. So in the UK, education programmes have been created to raise awareness of melanoma.

Programmes have been set up to tell people

• Who is at risk
• What to look out for
• What to do if they think a mole looks unusual in any way

You should check your moles regularly if you

• Are fair skinned
• Have a tendency to freckle or burn in the sun
• Have abnormal moles or a lot of moles

You can get your partner to examine moles if they are somewhere you can't see easily. This is particularly important if you have been badly sunburned in the past. You should also know that only about half of melanomas diagnosed develop on old moles (50%). The other half grow on what was previously normal skin. So if you notice a new mole that looks at all suspicious or seems to be growing quickly, show it to your doctor.

There is information about what to look out for in the CancerHelp UK section on melanoma symptoms. If you think you have a mole that is suspicious, go to your GP. Your GP may then refer you to a specialist clinic to have the mole looked at and probably removed. There is more about this in the section on diagnosing melanoma. There are Government guidelines on referral for melanoma, to help GPs decide which patients need to be seen urgently by a specialist.

You may be regularly seen at a pigmented lesion clinic if you have

• Had a melanoma diagnosed in the past
• A strong family history of melanoma (2 or more close relatives diagnosed)
• A family history and your family tend to have a lot of large, irregularly shaped moles

Pigmented lesion clinics are special clinics set up to check for melanoma. You attend regularly - probably once a year is enough. Your moles are examined by a doctor or nurse specially trained to look out for moles that may be beginning to become cancerous. If you have any moles that could be a melanoma, they can be removed at the clinic and examined in the lab. By removing suspicious moles early in this way, they can prevent an invasive melanoma developing.