The short answer is not necessarily. Two reasons why:

1. People spread it and then bake it in the sun twice as long as it should.

2. Some sunscreens are not broad spectrum. In other words, they protect against UVB rays but not UVA rays, which can also cause skin cancer, including malignant melanoma, which can be deadly.

Last year, the FDA issued new sun protection guidelines for manufacturers.

• To claim that a sunscreen protects against skin cancer, it must have at least SPF-15 and must protect against both UVB and UVA rays. If the claim cannot be made, a warning should be added to the label: “This product has not been shown to prevent skin cancer or premature skin aging.”
• No sunscreen is truly waterproof, so only the term waterproof can be used, and only if studies show that the product retains its value after being exposed to water.
• The term sunscreen can no longer be used, because no sunscreen can completely block the sun.

Even if you choose the right kind of sunscreen, you still need to use common sense. Here are some recommendations from the American Board of Family Medicine:

How to use sunscreen

• Don’t put on sunscreen and then stay in the sun so long that you burn.
• If your skin starts to redden or feel uncomfortable, don’t just reapply sunscreen, cover up, or get in the shade.
• Wear protective clothing, a hat, and sunglasses along with sunscreen.

The goal is not to avoid sun exposure at all; in fact, sunlight is an important source of vitamin D. The recommendation is that we get five to 30 minutes of sun exposure between 10 am and 3 pm at least twice a week. to our face, arms or back. What you want to avoid is sunburn because sunburn increases the risk of developing malignant melanoma.

did you know Malignant melanoma is now the most common cancer among people ages 25 to 29.? The Mayo Clinic has just published research that showed that the incidence of malignant melanoma has increased more than sixfold in the last 40 years. Multiple studies have shown a strong connection between sunburn during childhood and adolescence and malignant melanoma.

Dr. Frederick Aronson, a cancer specialist at the Maine Cancer Medicine Center in Scarborough, Maine, says, “Most of the ultraviolet radiation that causes melanoma reaches the person at risk before the age of 20. There are studies of migration that show if you grow up in a region with lots of sun and you move to a region with less sun in your 20s, your risk of melanoma is as if you had lived in the region with lots of sun all your life and vice versa.

The National Cancer Institute lists a series of risk factors for melanoma that we must take into account:

Risk factors for malignant melanoma related to sunlight

• Light-skinned with blue or green eyes, or red or blonde hair
• Living in a sunny climate or at high altitude
• High exposure to intense sunlight.
• Have had one or more blistering sunburns during childhood
• Use tanning beds

Risk factors not related to sunlight

• Close relative with a history of melanoma
• Coming in contact with cancer-causing chemicals like arsenic, coal tar, and creosote
• Certain types of moles (atypical dysplastic) or multiple birthmarks
• Weakened immune system due to illness or medication

Mike Cushman was diagnosed with advanced malignant melanoma in 2010. He has a story to share about the importance of finding it early. “He had a suspicious mole on the back of his head under his hair,” he recently described to me. “My daughter saw it and suggested my doctor check it out. The biopsy came back benign. At the end of July I felt a lump in that same area. In early August, it was removed for a biopsy and it turned out to be a malignant melanoma. No I can trace melanoma back to my family. I seem to be the only one. As a kid growing up in the ’50s and ’60s, I probably had my share of sunburns.”

Surgery is the most effective treatment for malignant melanoma. Depending on a variety of factors, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and immunotherapy are also used to treat melanoma. Each one comes with some serious side effects. Several promising new treatments are now being studied in clinical trials, including a targeted therapy that has given Mike high hopes. The treatment targets a mutated gene found in about half of people diagnosed with metastatic malignant melanoma.

“I’m in a phase 1 clinical trial of GlaxoSmithKline BRF113220. It’s a combination of a Braf protein inhibitor and MEK. It’s a targeted therapy. I have a Braf mutation in cancer cells, which made me eligible for a trial … I’m doing great. I’ve been on this treatment for 15 months. My CT scans continue to show stable tumor size and no new tumors. That’s always good news.”

Dr. Aronson says that targeted therapies are hopefully “the future of cancer treatment in the universe, where we don’t rely on the immune system to fight cancer, but we identify a mutation in the cancer cell that’s driving the cancer cell to proliferate and survive and cause problems in your body. We specifically designed in the lab a small molecule that can target that particular mutant process and paralyze it. Because it is specific to the tumor cell, the side effects of treatment are much less “.

The new approach to treating cancer holds great promise, but the real keys to treating malignant melanoma are preventing it in the first place and learning how to identify it early. The first signs are usually changes in an existing mole, but it can also appear as a new mole.

Signs of melanoma in a mole.

• Asymmetric shape: one half does not match the other
• The borders are irregular: irregular or blurred borders or pigment that extends into the surrounding skin.
• The color is not uniform, usually shades of brown, black, and tan, but sometimes whitish-gray, red, pink, or blue.
• Diameter: Usually larger than a pea, but can start small and grow larger
• Evolving Appearance: A change that occurs in just weeks or months.

Mike says that at his age he chooses not to think about the sunburns he got when he was younger. “I can’t go back and undo the past. What I would have done differently is talk to my doctor about follow-up care with a dermatologist. I am so grateful that my daughter brought the suspicious mole to my attention. back of my head. Both of my daughters now have a family history of melanoma and see a dermatologist at regular intervals. Trust me, I ask if they’ve been keeping their appointments.”

If you’ve been meaning to get screened for suspicious moles or are concerned about one in particular, Mike recommends that you make an appointment now to have it checked out. And if they tell you it’s nothing, but he doesn’t convince you, he gets a second opinion.