“I only had one bad sunburn there once.”
Dr. Aubriana McEvoy, a Mohs surgeon at Siteman Cancer Center and a dermatology professor at WashU Medicine, hears versions of that line all the time. “And that’s exactly where we end up treating a skin cancer,” she said.
When she examines those same patients, the rest of their skin tells a different story. “We commonly see more sun damage and skin cancers on the left hand and forearm from years of incidental exposure through the car window,” McEvoy said.
The sunburn the patient remembers is the one they blame. The years of “normal” exposure that actually built the skin cancer are the years no one thinks about.
That asymmetry, with the left side worse than the right, is one Dr. James Chao sees constantly. Dr Chao is a board-certified facial plastic surgeon in San Diego, and one-sided damage from driving is common enough to have its own name.
“Unilateral dermatoheliosis is something we see as facial plasti...
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