Clinic to Offer Skin Cancer Screenings

A skin cancer screening and education clinic will be held at the Camarillo Health Care District on Tuesday.

“The earlier you can detect things, the better off you are,” said Dr. Jill Mines, who will run the clinic.

One way to guard against skin cancer is through self-examination, Mines said. She suggests becoming familiar with your skin and patterns of moles, freckles and beauty marks. If any changes in the number, size and shape occur, contact a doctor.

Skin cancer is the most prevalent cancer, with about 700,000 Americans developing it each year.

The principal cause of skin cancer, most medical experts agree, is overexposure to sunlight, especially when it results in sunburn and blistering.

“Sun is definitely one of the known risk factors for causing skin cancer. That is a factor that we have control over,” Mines said. “Heredity you can’t change, but protection helps cut down the risk of skin cancer.”

Avoid the sun between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., Mines advised. And if you have to be in the sun, wear sunscreen and clothing.

And contrary to what many might believe, tanning beds are no safer.

“Tanning beds are just another way of getting sun,” she said. “It produces a slower type of sunburn with more delay, but it still causes injury to the skin. . . . It’s the same exposure and same injury.”

The skin cancer screening clinic will be from 1:15 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Camarillo Health Care District, 3639 E. Las Posas Road. For an appointment, call 388-1952, Ext. 258.