The Climate Change and Environmental Health report by the Environment and Science Research Institute (ESR) considers the possible effects on the health of New Zealanders as a result of extreme weather, air pollution and UV radiation. It is the first report of its kind in New Zealand.
Google Earth is a reasonably accurate and reliable and shade audit tool for playgrounds and beaches but not of activity areas at outdoor pools due to a lack of street view images, according to this recent study. The findings are relevant for programmes focused on supporting the development of healthy urban open spaces.
This recent study examined cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas diagnosed in Northland, New Zealand in 2015. It calculated that 668 per 100,000 Northlanders were treated for this disease in one year, which when accounted for age and ethnicity, extrapolates to 24,605 lesions in New Zealand per year.
Indoor tanners have a greater tendency to be screened for skin cancer and to be screened at an earlier age than non-tanners, however, skin cancer screening is still underused in this high-risk population, according to this recent survey study of 30,352 US adults.
This recent study suggests that melanoma patients with BRAF or NRAS mutant tumours have an increased risk compared to patients with BRAF/NRAS wild-type tumours of developing disease recurrence following a tumour-negative sentinel lymph node biopsy. The findings also confirm the importance of continued surveillance to monitor for disease recurrence among sentinel lymph node biopsy-negative patients.
New International Agency for Research on Cancer data released this month shows the number of melanoma attributable to UV by regions.
Raman spectroscopy can reveal the biophysical basis for accurate diagnosis of different skin cancers, which may eventually lead to a reduction in the number of unnecessary excisional skin biopsies performed, according to this recent study.
In 2012 District Health Board public health staff initiated six-monthly visits to commercial solaria to ensure that solarium operators were familiar with best practice procedures to reduce the risks from exposure to ultra-violet (UV) radiation from sunbeds.
The report from the second half of 2017 is now available.
On 19 and 20 March 2018, the Australian Skin and Skin Cancer Research Centre (ASSC) hosted a Sunscreen Summit with a view to developing a consensus approach to sunscreen policy.
Despite there being large variation in the content, quality and readability of patient-focused websites about melanoma, many high-quality melanoma websites for patients exist, according to this recent review.