SPOT THE DIFFERENCE Red’s editor Sarah Tomczak gets her moles checked

With summer comes the annual skin cancer anxiety and confusion. So, what does melanoma really look like? Sarah Tomczak gets her moles checked

Ihave a constellation of moles; liberal clusters across my shoulders and décolleté, some of which seem to appear the moment the sun starts to shine, while others remain permanent fixtures. All of them worry me, mainly because, despite my desire to douse myself in SPF 50 these days, I know that, as a teenager, a light sweep of oily, coconut-scented Hawaiian Tropic (SPF 2) was the only thing between my invariably pink skin and the sun’s harmful rays. It’s no secret that past sunburns can multiply your chances of developing skin cancer (tragically, I spent most of the late 1980s and early 1990s seeing sunburn as a necessary step to procuring my ‘base tan’). Skin cancer in the family also increases your risk (thankfully, I’m okay here), as do sunbeds (I can remember two) and an excess of moles (I think I have about 50). All of this annually sends me into a spiral of panic but, this summer, it also took me directly to The Mole Clinic for a full body check.

At £145 for a 45-minute session, it’s hardly cheap, but can you put a price on peace of mind? It’s also extremely enlightening. For a start, it transpires that most of those moles I obsess over when they appear each summer are actually freckles. Edyta Wener, the chatty and extremely knowledgeable screening nurse who examines me, likens a person’s mole pattern to flicking paint droplets on to your skin from a brush: while they probably won’t all be uniform in size, the shade and shape should be similar. Anything that doesn’t look like the others is worth further examination. She also tells me that the protruding, waxy mole in the centre of my back is called a seborrheic keratosis, and isn’t cause for concern. In fact, all the moles I was worried about are completely harmless, and the five she marks for further examination are ones I’d barely noticed, let alone lost sleep over. To be cause for concern, they usually need to tick two

or three of the following boxes: unsymmetrical in shape, blurred or irregular edges, uneven colour, having changed in size or shape, becoming itchy or bleeding.

She then photographs the five she’s highlighted, sending off the magnified images for further medical examination. Three days later, I receive a report saying that four of these moles are benign and advising the fifth (a flat, browny-red mole with an uneven border on the back of my neck) be removed for a biopsy (this can be done privately at the clinic or by taking your report to your NHS doctor). During my session, Wener tells me the best way to monitor your moles is by ‘mole mapping’. The clinic offers laser-guided imaging, but you can also do a DIY version by photographing each part of your body every three months and comparing the images. Apparently, most of our moles will have developed by the time we’re 40, so any we get after this should be closely monitored – it’s more likely a new mole will develop into melanoma than an existing one. Also, we should pay particular attention to our legs, which are exposed to the sun more than we realise. Don’t forget those often forgotten areas, either: inside our ears, palms, soles and under our nails (apparently Bob Marley died because of an undetected malignant melanoma under his toenail).

I’m not quite sure whether all this information ultimately feeds my anxiety or makes me feel more secure, because at least I know now what I’m looking for. Eventually, I decide on the latter. While I can’t change my past, at least I can protect my future.