TEXAS, USA —
Throughout Texas, residents are suffering from the extreme heat in a variety of ways. It is possible to have adverse effects from electricity to farming, to exhaustion, but in some ways it is more severe.
Texas residents more and more people are being diagnosed with skin cancer. In the last four years, Texas has seen a 13% increase in the number of skin cancer cases reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
According to Jamie Pawlowski, a radiation oncologist with St. Joseph Health, "The tumors are typically confined to the skin, and they can spread, but they can usually be treated just by treating the skin itself where they originated."
Pawlowski mentioned over the course of her time there, she has seen at least 20 patients at St. Joseph Health, and that is just for the severe ones. Pawlowski said a dermatologist is able to treat a host of different conditions.
As Pawlowski pointed out, this is generally a disease that occurs as the person ages, usually when they reach their 60s, 70s, or 80s. Therefore, protecting your skin from an early age will pay off in the long term.
"If you are going to be out in the sun, protect yourself, wear long sleeves, wear hats, the face, the neck, the shoulders, and the upper back are really common places for the development of skin cancer. So the best thing is a protective layer," said Pawlowski.
According to the Texas Cancer Registry, men have a skin cancer rate of 19.1, compared to 10.4 for women, and people with fair skin are more likely to develop skin cancer, but anyone is susceptible to ultraviolet ray damage.
"If there's any kind of darkened lesion that has changed, has asymmetric borders, or is growing," Pawlowski said. "That's something that you should go get checked out."