8 Surprising Facts Everyone Should Memorize About Skin Cancer

Skin cancer is on the rise among young people

Melanoma, the potentially fatal form of skin cancer increased eightfold for women under 40 and fourfold among young men since 1970, according to research out of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The researchers suggest that tanning along with better detection may be driving the uptick. What’s more, melanoma in children, while still extremely rare, increased about two percent per year from 1973 to 2009 among U.S. children from newborns to age 19. And it’s not just melanoma either, says Andrew C. Krakowski, MD, the Chief Medical Officer at DermOne, LLC in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. “I took care of two five-year olds with a syndrome that caused them to make basal cell skin cancers—about 500 of them each!” Find out what skin cancer looks like.