In the Know: Skin Cancer Doesn’t Affect Only White People

New York, N.Y.  With summer weather approaching, the usual warnings about skin cancer are not far off. African Americans typically think of melanoma as a white person’s disease and seldom heed warnings about overexposure to the sun’s ultraviolet rays.

African Americans assume that they’re not at risk for skin cancer.

That assumption can be deadly.

Actor Damian Thompson thought that way until a mole on his thigh was diagnosed as skin cancer, according to the New York Daily News .

“For me it was like, it’s not a big deal, it’s just not common for us,” Thompson told the Daily News. In fact, he went to his dermatologist after breaking out in hives and just mentioned the mole in passing. Fortunately for Thompson, his doctor caught his cancer before it started to spread.

“If it’s caught early, the actual prognosis is really good,” said Dr. Hooman Khorasani, chief of reconstructive and cosmetic surgery at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, who operated on Thompson.