In early September, the Cancer Center of Santa Barbara hosted a free skin cancer-screening event at La Cumbre Plaza as part of the Skin Cancer Foundation’s National Road to Healthy Skin Tour.
More than 70 people were screened, and the numbers for skin cancer were eight melanomas, 13 basal cell carcinomas and three squamous cell carcinomas.
The high number detected in Santa Barbara beat cities such as Phoenix, Ariz., Santa Monica, San Diego and San Francisco, and all other locations where tests were conducted across the country, with the exception of St. Petersburg, Fla., and Huntley, Ill.
The average number of melanomas per location was zero to three, out of 50 to 70 people screened at each stop.
“More than 10,000 people in the U.S. die from skin cancer every year.” said Lisa Hashbarger, health education coordinator at the Cancer of Center of Santa Barbara. “Most people don’t know that they should get a yearly skin exam, and so that is the message we want to send. Caught in the early stages, skin cancer is almost always curable.”
Last year, the Road to Healthy Skin Tour traveled 17,650 miles and made 81 stops. It attracted nearly 7,000 visitors, screened more than 3,000 and 39 suspected cases of melanoma were found.
— Daniella Elghanayan is a publicist.