Screening for carcinoma is an important service to provide to patients

Optometry Times'® Kassi Jackson sat down with Richard Castillo, OD, DO, consulting ophthalmologist for Northeastern State University's School of Optometry, professor and assistant dean for surgical training and education, to discuss his presentation, "Screening for Carcinoma of the Eyelids," that he is presenting during the 2022 AOA annual meeting in Chicago.

Richard Castillo, OD, DO:

"Did you know that something on the order of 15,000 skin cancers are diagnosed in the US every day, and 10% of those — or 1500 — are on or around the eyelid?

I didn't know that until a few years ago when I started researching this talk and similar talks.

And all of a sudden, you know, I come to the realization that, not only do we have ... 1500 skin cancers on or around the eyelid diagnosed yearly, but one in five adults will come down with some form of skin cancer throughout the course of their lifetime. That's 20% of the population.

That's almost double the number of diabetics, that we have walking around, and as eye care providers: optometrist, ophthalmologist... we are fanatic about screening for diabetes and ocular manifestations of diabetes and making sure everybody gets their yearly DFE. And yet I hear almost nothing over lid cancers."

Key takeaways:

• Screening for lid cancer is part of primary eye care.
• Screening involves all the techniques other physicians would use to screen, for example: palpating the lymph nodes