Melanoma screening is worth the money, study shows

But opinions are not unanimous. Experts are calling for controlled randomized trials to answer the question definitively.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. Feb. 5, 2007.

A one-time total-body skin exam to hunt for melanoma in patients who are older than 50 is as cost effective as other widely accepted cancer screenings such as mammograms and Pap smears. For those with a family history that includes skin cancer, getting checked every two years is also cost effective, according to a paper in last month's Archives of Dermatology.

"We suggest everybody 50 and older be screened once. Those in higher-risk categories should be screened more often. This would be a huge benefit to a lot of people," said Elena Losina, PhD, lead author of the study and associate professor of biostatistics at the Boston University School of Public Health and Massachusetts General Hospital.

The response from organizations and physicians that support more frequent melanoma screening -- the least used of all the cancer screening modalities -- was positive.

"It's a commonsense kind of thing that the cost of screening would be worth preventing somebody from dying from melanoma," said Brett Coldiron, MD, chair of the American Academy of Dermatology's health care finance committee and clinical assistant professor of dermatology at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.

Support for this perspective, however, is far from universal. The AAD and the American Cancer Society recommend regular skin exams, but the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force finds insufficient evidence to recommend either for or against this practice. The USPSTF does advocate that physicians be alert to possible lesions while conducting physical exams for other purposes.