

Skin Cancer Foundation

Not safe from the sun

Not safe from the sun

Betty Jordan always regarded melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, as a white person's disease. "Whenever I heard the word, my mind would automatically think: 'Caucasian,' '' she says. "It was something I never worried about.''

So she was shocked five years ago to learn that the quarter-size dark spot on her left foot was acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM), an aggressive cancer that disproportionately afflicts African Americans and other dark-skinned people. "I never paid any attention to it until a friend urged me to see a doctor,'' she says. "The area was hard to see, and it never occurred to me to get serious about it.''

Fortunately, it was caught...