Skin examination for signs of cancer.

Doctors sometimes examine or suggest examination of the skin for signs of skin cancer, and self-examination of the skin has been promoted in some public education materials. A representative sample of 590 residents of Victoria was asked whether they or their doctors had ever deliberately checked for signs of skin cancer, and whether their doctors had ever suggested such a check. Respondents also indicated their skin type by degree of freckling and propensity to sunburn. The results suggest that females have a higher level of skin awareness than males. People prone to sunburn and heavily freckled individuals were more likely to have checked their skin, and doctors were more likely to have suggested a check to highly freckled individuals. Self-examination, examination by a doctor and recommendations from doctors for self-examination were all positively associated with each other, indicating that a section of the population was identified by themselves or their doctors as being at risk, but this group was not well defined by the two indices of risk used in the survey.