Cancer screening: 'Skin checks saved my life'
TONI Woodward has been diagnosed with melanoma twice and credits screening with saving her life.
The cancer survivor lives in a melanoma hotspot, according to the Australian Cancer Atlas.
Ms Woodward lives at Lowood, near Ipswich, where melanoma rates are 44 per cent higher than the Australian average.
In her early-30s, Ms Woodward was diagnosed with stage-two melanoma that had not yet hit her lymph nodes. Since then, her skin has been under the intense scrutiny of doctors.
In 2012, another diagnosis of melanoma came as a shock, but again it was a stage-two diagnosis.
"Finding the cancer early has definitely been a lifesaver. I was first diagnosed in Sydney and when I told my doctor I was moving to Queensland he said, 'are you sure about that. It's the melanoma capital of world'," Ms Woodward told The Courier-Mail.
Her doctor uses photographic imagery to make sure there is not the slightest change to her spots
