STAYING ON GUARD AGAINST SKIN CANCER

Featuring an interview with Susan Manber, Chief Strategy Officer, Digitas Health

Excerpted from The New York Times:

Susan Manber, now a 55-year-old from Cortlandt Manor, N.Y., knows this well. She credits her astute daughter with having saved her life nearly six years ago when Sarina, then 13, remarked, ‘Mom, what’s that thing on your nose?’

That ‘thing’ was a tiny white nodule on the rim of one nostril, a weird place, Ms. Manber thought, for a pimple.

In a few weeks this seemingly innocent pimple had developed a tiny purple center, prompting her to see a dermatologist, who thought it wasn’t anything to worry about but sent her to a specialist to have it removed and biopsied.

The report that came back on New Year’s Eve 2013 could not have been more shocking: a very rare and aggressive form of skin cancer called Merkel cell carcinoma. It’s a diagnosis made only 2,500 times a year in the United States, and until recently had a life expectancy of five months from diagnosis.

Read the full article in The New York Times and follow Sue on LinkedIn.