Should you get screened for skin cancer?
By Nicholas St. Fleur, New York Times
Every summer as Americans slather on sun lotion, they are reminded of the dangers of skin cancer.
This year alone, more than 76,000 people in the United States will developmelanoma, the deadliest form of the disease, and about 10,000 will die from it.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said, however, that there still isn’t enough evidence to recommend total-body screenings and declined to take a position on the practice.
In short, the 17-member independent panel said that it could not determine — after reviewing thousands of research papers and studies from around the world — whether the benefits of screening outweighed the potential for harm if unnecessary or excessive procedures were performed.
