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Because of their age, their ancestry and their many years in the California sunshine, both Reagan, 74, and Nixon, 72, are typical victims. The risk of developing skin cancer increases with age and years of exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays. In the U.S., one Caucasian in seven will be stricken during his lifetime. Skin cancer is hundreds of times more common among whites than blacks and is especially common in those of Northern European extraction, with Irish Americans like Reagan at particularly high risk...
Other types of skin cancer can pose a greater threat. Squamous-cell carcinomas generally appear as raised, pinkish scaly patches. If not promptly treated, 5% of them metastasize to other tissues and organs. Most deadly of all is malignant melanoma, which typically begins as a dark, unevenly pigmented spot with irregular edges and can quickly spread to invade internal organs. Melanoma afflicts 22,000 Americans a year and kills 5,500. Though heredity and a medical history of unusual moles play a part in it, evidence suggests that serious, blistering sunburns, suffered during the first two decades of life...
...best way to avoid all types of skin cancer is simply to stay out of the sun, especially during the peak-intensity hours of midday. For those who cannot resist its lure, doctors urge the use of sunscreens designed to block ultraviolet radiation. People who have already had a basal-cell carcinoma run a 25% risk of developing another and must be especially cautious. Last week Reagan admitted that this advice was "a little heartbreaking ... because all my life I've lived with a coat of tan, dating back to my lifeguard days...
Self-examination for signs of skin cancer is simple, requiring little more than a full-length mirror, a hand mirror to see one's back and a blow-dryer to examine the scalp. "The ability of people to detect skin cancers is tremendous if they're motivated," observes Dr. Robert Friedman of N.Y.U. Indeed, many newly motivated Americans went scurrying to dermatologists last week, just as Reagan's colon cancer sent them to gastroenterologists. "We had five patients walk in off the streets who identified their own basal-cell carcinomas," says Friedman. "Four of them were right." --By Claudia Wallis...
Shortly after Ronald Reagan cleared up the confusion about his skin cancer last week, several reporters laced into White House Spokesman Larry Speakes for being less than candid the week before, when he declined to say whether a biopsy had been performed. "You pulled an iron curtain down on the truth," said U.P.I. Correspondent Helen Thomas at a tense briefing. "Exactly right," replied Speakes. "But I did not lie. And I told the truth...