CANCER-EARLY WARNING
People with varicose veins, diabetes, or hardening of the arteries often must learn to accept an unhealed leg ulcer as the inevitable complication of poor circulation. While it is true that skin healing can be greatly impaired by these conditions, it is also true that leg ulcers due to poor circulation ought to improve when given appropriate treatment.
A report in the British Medical Journal (286:207) tells of patients with long-standing varicose veins or diabetes who also had ulcerated skin of the lower leg that stubbornly failed to heal for periods of up to 10 years. Skin cancer, although not obvious, was ultimately found to be the underlying fault in all. The moral of this story is that, regardless of the status of the circulation, one must always suspect skin cancer and have appropriate tests performed when a leg ulcer fails to show any signs of healing after four months of medical treatment.
Irregularly shaped pigmented moles that appear on the skin at any time after birth, medically known as dysplastic nevi, and which are over six mm (about a quarter of an inch) in diameter, are likely to grow and turn into melanomas (a type of skin cancer) at some time before one is 70 years old, the journal Cutis (34#5:498) reports. Accordingly, one should examine large moles regularly every month and, if there is any doubt, measure them to make sure that they are not growing. In addition, these moles should be examined by a physician every six months. Any that are getting bigger should be removed before they can become melanomas.
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