I was trying to answer a message sent to me by a reader and as I was poking around here to find a post that I had written a few years ago, I realized that I was sitting on 249 posts. I figured I would use my 250th post to thank you for reading this little ramble-fest of mine and… Read more »
If you follow the news regarding advancements in melanoma detection and treatment as much as I do, you may have seen the news story that researchers in Australia have been working on developing a blood test that could identify early-stage melanoma. This is really exciting news because as we all know, the earlier you detect melanoma, the better the odds… Read more »
If you or a loved one has been prescribed hydrochlorothiazide, you may want to be extra vigilant about checking for skin changes. That’s because long-term use of this common diuretic has been previously linked to lip and non-melanoma cancers, but a new study may also extend those increased risks to melanoma. “We have recently shown that hydrochlorothiazide use increases the… Read more »
I check one of those “days of the month” calendars to see if there’s anything fun I can use for the Twitter account I maintain at work (because I’m trying to not be all corporate-y all the time, even though I probably will get in trouble someday for the funny memes I post since I am positive the brand team… Read more »
There is an incredibly unsettling story coming out of the U.S. regarding a significant number of cases of ocular melanoma. The colored parts of your eye contain melanocytes, cells that provide pigment in various parts of your body. Cancer can arise in these cells, causing melanoma. Ocular melanoma is even more rare than amelanotic nodular melanoma. It occurs in six out… Read more »
Being consistent with good eating habits, drinking those glasses of water, and exercising is supposed to be good for you (I wouldn’t know because I’m unable to do all three of those things consistently). But in melanoma treatment, consistency may not always be a good thing, at least according to recently published research. Combining various drug treatments has been at… Read more »
So there’s an article released yesterday that basically says that if you have a pigmented lesion in your iris (the colored part of your eye), you have an increased likelihood of developing melanoma. I wanted to run to the mirror and stare at my irises but because I am at work, I figured I would avoid the awkward conversation in… Read more »
Been a little quiet on the blog as I have been slammed with work stuff and still trying to recover from whatever that second virus-head-cold thing was. It’s SXSW in Austin and the sleep deficit I’m carrying isn’t going to be wiped out anytime soon. But I did see an interesting story I wanted to share. Researchers at the University… Read more »
Malignant melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer. To readers of this blog, that shouldn’t come as any surprise. And for years, we’ve been taught the ABCDE rules on detecting melanoma. A stands for asymmetry; B is for borders so anything with ill-defined borders is suspect; C is for the color and whether the mole or lesion has more… Read more »
Science is really cool… and a new research study from the team at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (an Ivy League school, BTW) thinks it may have the answer on why women with a history of a previous pregnancy statistically end up with better outcomes after a melanoma diagnosis. I’m going to quote a passage on… Read more »