The National Skin Cancer Screening Tour continues to offer free screenings by certified dermatologists to interested people at Baltimore?s Inner Harbor Saturday.
Most patients are cancer free, but the screening also gave Dr. Lacartia Best an opportunity to teach participants how to care for their skin and correct misperceptions about sun safety.
Yacht salesman Bill Yates, who lives on his boat in the Inner Harbor, spends most of his life outdoors and has a healthy-looking tan to show for it.
“Do you wear sunblock?” Dr. Best asked him.
“Right now I got [SPF] 8,” he replied.
“That?s not high enough, you have to have at least 15.”
“If I put on two coats, that?s 16,” he joked.
“It doesn?t work that way,” she said. “You know you have to reapply that sunscreen during the day.”
“I?m bad at that,” Yates said.
Yates, like many of the people Best saw Friday, said he has not done much to care for his skin, “but I?m getting better.”
So far the national tour has revealed more than 1,100 cases of skin cancer in 3,200 people since its beginning in Washington state in March, said tour manager John Garrigan, executive vice president of Bradley Pharmaceuticals.
According to tour information, 761 patients are suspected of having actinic keratosis ? the first step in the development of skin cancer ? and 370 potentially have basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas, the two most common forms of skin cancer.
Those patients have been urged to see their regular doctor ora dermatologist.
At least 40 melanomas, the most serious form of skin cancer, have been suspected, underscoring the importance of screening and early detection.
“It?s nice to be able to do a marketing initiative that gives back, rather than just putting our name out there,” Garrigan said.
The tour, co-sponsored by the Skin Cancer Foundation, and the purple and white 38-foot screening RV are stopped at Rash Field near the Rusty Scupper Restaurant, 601 Light St., Screenings are available on a walk-in basis Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Miss Maryland 2006, Brittany Lietz, a skin cancer survivor, joined the tour for the Baltimore stop.
Finding skin cancer requires a variety of tactics, said Baltimore Dermatologist Dr. Lawrence Feldman.
“We look for a mole that changes colors, maybe turns black or bleeds.”
Tools of the trade include lighted magnifying glasses and hand-held microscopes, and a full examination takes between five and 15 minutes, but could save your life, he said. “If you don?t catch it early, it can be really deadly. It spreads throughout the whole body.”
