USPSTF Drops Annual Skin Cancer Screening Recommendation

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recently reversed its position that annual skin screenings are recommended for all adults, citing that the "current evidence is insufficient and that the balance of benefit and harms of visual skin examination by a clinician to screen for skin cancer in asymptomatic adults cannot be determined."

Tim Turnham, PhD, Executive Director of the Melanoma Research Foundation, believes this statement will incorrectly lead some people to believe that annual skin screenings are "unimportant." If there is currently insufficient data to support the recommendation of annual skin checks, that means that critical research still needs to be performed in order to generate the data that will more conclusively determine whether screening asymptomatic adults should be a part of every family physician's yearly medical checkup consultations.

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