Skin deep

by | May 2, 2018 | Uncategorized

Skin cancer is a growing problem in the UK today, but often a cancerous mole is quite difficult to recognise until it’s reached quite dramatic proportions. If you could have an instant clinical assessment on a mole that was troubling you, without recourse to queuing through the NHS, wouldn’t you leap at the chance?
Karen Maul-Harkell, a life-long sunworshipper, did. “I have always loved the sun. We spent every summer holiday in Spain and I did use sun protection, but we didn’t know about SPFs and the dangers of UVB rays back then. Now I’m retired I live in Spain and of course it’s almost impossible to avoid the sun.
“I’ve always had lots of moles, but more seemed to be appearing recently and I began to wonder if I should see a doctor when my daughter told me about the Molemate scanner service that Helen offers at her salon in Bramhall.”

Molemate uses a hand-held scanner to take five photos of the mole to analyse colour, areas of increased or decreased blood supply, amounts of melanin and dermal melanin and any irregular collagen patters. The software creates a report detailing activity in each of these five areas and then gives a score between one and ten. Anything scoring a six or higher is referred to Dr John Ashworth, a consultant dermatologist and leading expert in skin cancer. Should John have concerns the client is provided with the full report to take to their GP.

Karen’s consultation took around 30 minutes and Helen checked three moles that Karen had concerns about, plus two more that Helen herself identified as slightly unusual.

Helen says that only around five per cent of clients need a report sending to John, and of these of course only a small percentage actually have a cancerous mole – but Helen has discovered these and potentially saved lives.

“I worked for BA for many years when my boys were small and we had a number of exotic holidays. I thought I was being really careful and using a great sun cream, but it turned out that it had no UVB protection in it, just UVA. UVB rays are the ones that can cause cancer, so when they started getting moles popping up as teenagers I did a lot of research into how to check if they might be of concern. I discovered Molemate, which is huge in Australia and the US, but almost unknown over here outside of London.

“I love all the beauty work I do at Loved, but this is literally life and death. In London they charge such a lot of money for people to have a scan, I can’t do that – it’s too important.”

One of Karen’s moles scored eight, so she has taken a report back to Spain with her for her GP there.

“Helen explained everything so well that I’m not actually worried!” Karen says. “I’ve already had three moles removed and it’s more than likely this is just another benign one. I can’t recommend the service enough – I now have something more than a vague concern to take to my doctor.”

A mole scan costs just £49.95. What price peace of mind?