May 27, 2009 8:28 pm US/Eastern
NJ High School Students Get Tested For Skin Cancer
Reporting
Cindy Hsu
MONTCLAIR, N.J. (CBS) ―
Every year, there are more new cases of skin cancer than breast, prostate, lung and colon cancer combined. Doctors say the key to survival is early detection, and that means getting your kids screened when they're very young.
Seth Madej is a junior at Montclair High School, and in school he's getting a free screening for skin cancer. It takes less than 10 minutes to check his back, toes, scalp, and get an all clear.
"We're young, young people tend to think they're invincible, I know a lot of people go out without sunscreen, a lot people don't think twice about it," Madej.
Seth grew up knowing all about the dangers of skin cancer. His father is a melanoma survivor.
Ray Festa was not so lucky. He died from melanoma at 53, and so his family started a Memorial Fund to teach people about prevention and early detection.
Dr. Grossier said kids should be getting screened starting at 12-years-old, and need to know what to look for on their bodies.
He said melanoma used to affect 1 in 1000 people. It's now 1 in 150.
Last year in the United States, there were more than 62,000 new cases of melanoma and 8,400 deaths.
Dr. Groisser said prevention is easy. "People don't need to be afraid of the sun just use common sense, avoid blistering sunburns, wear a hat, wear sunscreen 30 and greater, apply your sunscreen 5 minutes before you go outside, reapply it every 6 hours."
The outreach is working.
Student Justin Davis had always thought you had to be fair skinned to get melanoma and had never used sunscreen, but after today's screening, he said: "He told me Bob Marley actually died from skin cancer."
This is the Foundation's first free skin cancer screening, but they're hoping to expand them in schools nationwide within five years.
For more information on skin cancer, click
here.
For
Information on the Ray Festa Memorial Foundation, click here.
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