A study from the University of North Carolina has demonstated that skin cancers can vary in lethality depending on where they start. After considering over 50,000 cases of melanoma in the past decade, the researchers concluded that patients whose lesions begin on their scalp or neck died nearly twice as fast as cancers that began anywhere else on the body.
Scientists are not surprised by this, says Dr. Vijay Trisal of the City of Hope National Medical Center in L.A., who notes that “maximum sun exposure areas are the scalp, face and neck.”