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111 lines
6.8 KiB
Plaintext
111 lines
6.8 KiB
Plaintext
Episode: 2075
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Title: HPR2075: Skin cancer
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Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2075/hpr2075.mp3
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Transcribed: 2025-10-18 14:00:47
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---
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This in HPR episode 2007 to 5 entitled Kin Cancer, it is hosted by Clinton Roy and in about
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6 minutes long.
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The summer is my recent experience with Kin Cancer and a primer on UV.
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This episode of HPR is brought to you by AnanasThost.com, get 15% discount on all shared hosting
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with the offer code HPR15, that's HPR15.
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Better web hosting that's honest and fair at AnanasThost.com.
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This is a very personal podcast discussing minor surgery.
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If that sort of stuff makes you cringe at all, this may not be the recording for you.
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I should also point out that I'm not a medical professional.
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You should not take this recording as medical advice.
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If you have any concerns about your skin, seek professional medical advice.
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I'm a very white person living in Queensland, Australia.
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Our state has amongst the highest rate of skin cancers in the world.
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I believe we're in a tussle with New Zealand for the first place at the moment.
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There are two main types of skin cancer, melanoma and non melanoma.
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The non melanoma type is slow growing and rarely spreads to other parts of the body, while
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melanoma is fast growing and spreads to the rest of the body.
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Both of my parents have had multiple lesions excised, so something like this was always
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on my mind.
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We live in a sunny, subtropical environment.
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The sort of clothing you'd want to wear for comfort is light, breezy and not covering
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much skin.
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Exactly the wrong sort of clothes you'd need to wear to protect yourself from ultraviolet,
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UV rays that help cause skin cancer.
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According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology FAQ, the per capita risk of skin cancer in
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Australia is 10 times higher than America and 60 times higher than the UK.
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The UV scale rarely gets above 8 in the UK.
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Embrysman, the UV scale is above 8 for roughly 8 months of the year.
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There are a lot of variables when it comes to UV.
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Cloud cover is probably the most important.
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The thing that I can't stress enough is that heat and UV are not correlated.
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You can definitely be exposed to lots of UV when it's cold.
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Seeing New Zealand, they're much more south, much more cold and have more exposure due
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to the ozone hole.
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Another example is snow.
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UV will bounce off the snow and back at you.
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The link between skin cancer and UV is quite strong.
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25 to 99% of skin cancers are caused by excess sun exposure.
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So with all that history, I started getting yearly skin checks a couple of years ago.
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I've had a couple of skin checks when I was very young, and now that I'm more advanced
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in years, I wanted something less ad hoc.
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Someone working for one such organisation gave a talk at one of the user groups I attended,
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and I made an appointment with MallMap.
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It's a full-on procedure where your entire body is photographed.
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And each mole, freckle, bump and lump that is of possible concern is photographed from
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a few centimetres off the skin, and with the magnification lens sitting right on top of
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the mole.
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I have some near 200 spots on myself that are of interest, so my follow-up appointments
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take about two and a half hours to go over all these spots, plus looking for new ones.
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The hope is that, by doing this close to yearly, small changes in all these spots won't
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go unnoticed, and we can get on top of any cancers early.
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Interestingly, the spot that was actually a problem was a new one.
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So under a year old, and was hiding underneath my beard, so in future I'm definitely going
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to have to have my skin checked, clean shaven.
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The other thing I want to communicate is that early detection is key.
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All the skin cancers have a 90% plus survival rate, at 5 years, if caught early enough.
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This does potentially mean that a yearly check is not enough, but it's already proven
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it's worth to me.
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MallMap only does photography of spots and visual diagnosis.
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It does not do any treatment or biopsies or exisions, therefore it has no self-interest
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in recommending treatment on borderline cases.
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MallMap sprang out of a University of Queensland project, which is my alma mater.
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After receiving the diagnosis, Voron online form, secured with a second factor sent to
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my phone, and penicking a favourite, I contacted my regular doctor's practice.
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We call them general practitioners in Australia, I'm sure they call different things elsewhere.
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For an appointment with a GP who had experience with skin cancers.
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In Queensland, most medical centres will have at least one doctor with experience in
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this area.
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As it turns out, my regular GP has such experience, and I got an appointment for the following
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week.
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I wasn't really sure what to expect from my GP appointment, but I was mostly expecting
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to get the diagnosis confirmed, and I either get sent to a specialist to deal with it
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or organise another appointment at the GP.
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What actually happened was it took all of five minutes for my doctor to confirm the diagnosis.
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One workout, he had time in his schedule, and there was a nurse free to exercise the
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legion straight away.
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I was given a local anaesthetic, so I felt no pain whatsoever, but you still feel the doctor
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pulling on your skin up, down, left and right, so that the complete legion can be removed,
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as well as a small amount of surrounding skin in case the cancer has spread.
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Here I should mention that melanoma spread very fast, and when they are exercised up to
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a centimeter of skin may need to be removed, whereas for non melanomic, a millimeter or
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so is good enough.
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I got four switches put in, they stayed for a week, we have a long Easter break in Australia,
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so I ended up being closer to a week and a half.
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I had no problems, my scar healed up quickly and nicely.
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Now a couple of months later, there's a little redness along the scar line, but that's
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about it.
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So, the takeaways, UV is not correlated to heat, and get a lot of UV exposure in cold environments.
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If you're travelling through a high UV area, such as Australia, take precautions, close
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that cover a lot of your skin, hat, some glasses and sunscreen.
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If you live in a high UV area, get your skin checked regularly.
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Also, keep an eye on your own skin, use a diary to record any new bumps, lumps, spots,
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etc.
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You've been listening to HECCA Public Radio at HECCA Public Radio dot org.
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We are a community podcast network that releases shows every weekday, Monday through Friday.
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Today's show, like all our shows, was contributed by an HBR listener like yourself.
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If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then click on our contributing to find out
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how easy it really is.
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HECCA Public Radio was founded by the digital dog pound and the Infonomicom Computer Club,
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and is part of the binary revolution at binwreff.com.
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If you have comments on today's show, please email the host directly, leave a comment on
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the website or record a follow-up episode yourself.
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Unless otherwise status, today's show is released under Creative Commons, Attribution,
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