What's the routine when it comes to skin cancer and and regular checkup after treatment in let's say in UK?
Asked by
flo (
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July 18th, 2018
1)If a patient is told “You need a regular check up every year, after getting the treatment for your skin cancer”, does the hospital where she /he got the treatment not just give his/her appointment with a dermatologist, (or is it the oncologist?) automatically? If someone says I’m searching for a dermatologist for my (yearly, let’say) checkup, Would the question “Why would you need to search?” make sense?
2) And does it matter anyway whether it’s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Health_Service_(England)
or if it’s US’s system?
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7 Answers
The general course of treatment is the same both in the U.S and in the UK.
But the treatment depends upon the nature of the cancer and when discovered. The treatement for a basal cell carcinoma found early is much different from the treatment of melanoma. And the followup differs too.
If one is initailly treated by a dermatologist, then you have a place for followup appointmnets. But if you started out at an urgent care or an ER, then they would have to find a dermatologist to accept you as a patient.
The question “Why would you need to search?” does not make sense unless you want to find a dermatologist and amke an appointmnet on your own.
We’re miscommunicating. I’ll get back to this thread.
What if dermatologist sent you to an oncologist?
Oncologists treat cancer with Chemo or Radiation.
Dermatologist treat skin issues from rashes to skin cancer.
They do different things.
@flo Then it is up to the oncologist to determine who you should see for follow-up.
As a general rule of thumb, though, if your skin cancer is serious enough to be referred to an oncologist, then your course of treatment will be longer and more thorough, and the follow-up appointments will be much more frequent than once a year.
That’s what I thought. “it is up to the oncologist to determine who you should see for follow-up.”
I just picked one yr. off the top of my head.
More likely they would visit, whomever at 3 month cycles and include bloodwork if “markers” were found and CAT scans for metastasized tumors.
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