Skin Cancer Alert

With summer just around the corner, lots of time in the sun could be, too, for many of us.

But The Early Show medical correspondent Dr. Emily Senay cautions that too much sun could be dangerous.

Ultraviolet radiation from the sun raises the risk of skin cancer later in life.

The type of skin cancer that we worry about most is malignant melanoma, which can spread inside the body and kill you.

Other kinds of skin cancer, such as basal cell skin cancer, are much less dangerous than melanoma.

The good news is that skin cancer is a visible cancer, and when melanoma is detected early and treated, it's very curable.

Skin cancer risk factors include fair skin, family history, lots of moles on the body, or a history of sunburns and sun exposure over a lifetime. Young people should really learn to avoid the sun early in life, but that can be a difficult task.

A new survey from the American Academy of Dermatology shows that, even though teenagers know sun exposure is dangerous, most still want a tan to improve their looks.

Among the teens surveyed, 79 percent were aware that getting a tan from the sun can be dangerous for their skin. Eighty-one percent of teens knew that sunburns increase their risk of developing skin cancer, but 60 percent still said they got sunburned last summer. The consequences of skin cancer are a high price to pay for a few weeks of tan.

The best way to avoid skin cancer is to try to stay out of the sun and wear protective clothing outdoors. If you do expose skin to the sun, wear sunscreen of SPF (sun protection factor) of 15 higher. Sunscreen is not complete protection. SPF refers to the amount of extra time you can spend in the sun without burning, so an SPF of fifteen theoretically means you can spend 15 times longer in the sun than normal. Make sure sunscreen protection is constant, and apply it on a regular basis, whether or not you're outside all the time.

As for skin cancer's warning signs, be on the lookout for what we call the ABCs of skin cancer.