THE number of people going to hospital to have moles treated had increased by at least 20 percent over the past month after watching a popular movie, If You Are the One II, doctors at Shenzhen No. 2 People s Hospital said Tuesday.
Most people were worried that moles could cause melanoma and eventually become malignant, like a character in the movie, so they went to hospital to have them treated or removed, said Wu Wenzhong, director of the hospital s dermatology department.
In the past, 80 percent of the people had moles removed for looks or superstitious reasons, but most were now worried about their health, Wu said.
In the movie, a character called Li Xiangshan had a mole on his foot and it later became a melanoma and he died in a few months.
It made me very worried about a mole I had on my back, so I decided to have it removed and tested to see if there was a problem, a former patient identified as Mo told the Daily Sunshine.
However, doctors said people should not worry too much about moles on their bodies because the percentage of moles becoming malignant was low. Only one in 100,000 people has a malignant melanoma in China and the disease can be easily cured if treated in time, Wu said.
Melanoma is one of the less common types of skin cancer, but is the cause of the majority of deaths from skin cancer. Around 160,000 new cases of melanoma are diagnosed in the world each year, more frequently in women than in men. It is particularly common among Caucasians living in sunny climates, such as Australia, New Zealand and North America.
Moles on the hands, feet, noses and necks could be more prone to malignancy. People who have moles on these areas can have a medical examination to see if there is a need to remove them, Wu said.
In the movie, the character said people should have moles removed by laser treatment, but doctors said that removing moles with a laser would not prevent a malignant change. It would only remove the surface, but the cells would remain in the skin with the risk of changing, Wu said.
(Wang Yuanyuan)
