The east facade of the University of Arizona College of Nursing.
Researchers at the University of Arizona have created a training program for massage therapists to identify possible signs of skin cancer and talk about it with their clients.
Lois Loescher, a professor in the UA College of Nursing, said she and Myra Muramoto, a doctor and professor of family and community medicine, enlisted 80 licensed massage therapists throughout Arizona to go through the two-week online training. According to a press release, 1 in 5 people are diagnosed with skin cancer by the age of 70, making it the most common form of cancer in the United States.
"Massage therapists have their eyes on a person's skin probably more often than any other professional," Loescher said.
Clients usually visit their massage therapists more and for longer time periods than they do their primary care doctors, according to the release, which cites a 2002 Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine study.
Loescher said they taught the participants to gently draw attention to a changes or irregularities of moles or lesions through conversations with mock clients. She said for massage therapists it's important to notice the evolution of a mark on the body.
Instead of jumping to conclusions or attempting to diagnose a client, Loescher said the training taught the massage therapists to objectively tell the client what alerted them and that it might be wise to go to a dermatologist to get it checked.
Almost six months after the training, Loescher said she tested the participants' recall and skills. She said they were more confident and had retained the lessons.
"If more people are aware of skin cancer and more people are comfortable with the idea of talking about it, then, hopefully, it will help reduce the rates of skin cancer in our state and nationally," Loescher said.
The Arizona Department of Health Services reports between 2013 and 2017 there was a 77% increase in melanoma cases. It attributed that to an increase in reporting providers, but it's still unclear if the number of cases across the state is actually growing. The department reported 5,043 cases of melanoma in 2017. About half of those were invasive melanomas.
She said the next step will be to test the training on a more random group, and one day, she hopes it'll be a free tool massage therapists can use to better serve their clients.
According to the UA press release, there isn't a national standard around skin cancer prevention training within the various massage therapy curriculums. Loescher said an honors student at the University of Arizona surveyed massage therapy schools in Arizona to see how popular skin cancer education was. She said the results were inconsistent.
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