In 2009, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) found insufficient evidence to recommend skin examinations for the early detection of skin cancer in adults. The conclusion followed from a systematic review of the effectiveness and harms of clinical visual skin examinations by physicians or patient self-examinations in terms of morbidity and mortality from skin cancer.
Several years later, after another systematic review,1 the USPSTF’s conclusion—that there is insufficient evidence to recommend total-body skin examination for the early detection of melanoma, basal cell cancer, or squamous cell cancer in all adults—remains the same.2