Eight out of ten men, and nine out of ten women diagnosed with the most dangerous form of skin cancer will now survive the disease, a new report by charity Cancer Research UK has found.
Survival rates for malignant melanoma in Scotland have increased considerably since 30 years ago, when only 58% of men and 78% of women beat the disease.
The increases are likely to be down to improvements in treatment, early diagnosis and awareness of the symptoms, the charity said.
Skin cancer is one of the fastest rising cancers in the UK, and around 1,200 Scots are diagnosed with malignant melanoma every year.
Dr Tim Crook, a consultant medical oncologist and scientist at the University of Dundee who treats melanoma and works on Cancer Research UK projects, said: "Forty years ago, only around half of those diagnosed with skin cancer were surviving.
"Eight out of 10 is a massive improvement, but clearly we can't stop there.
"More and more people are beating skin cancer but we still need to ensure new treatments are developed.
"We've come a long way in the fight against skin cancer and that's largely down to the generosity of supporters who have funded research to help us better understand the disease and find new ways of beating it."
He added: "We have seen big improvements in skin cancer surgery and research from Cancer Research UK-funded laboratories has allowed the development of drugs like Vemurafenib, which isn't a cure but can give patients with advanced melanoma valuable extra months.
"Work in our own lab has identified new ways to diagnose metastatic melanoma at an early stage where the evidence is that new treatments work better."
Skin cancer survivor Caroline Begg, of Glasgow, was diagnosed with malignant melanoma in 2006, when she was 26 years old.
Caroline, once a regular sunbed user, said: "I was very lucky that my cancer was caught early. I think going to the doctor early and the treatment I received saved my life.
"Now I am the most cautious person in the sun and would never, ever use a sunbed. I would urge everyone to take care so they don't have to go through the trauma I did.
"I was very lucky that treatments have come on leaps and bounds and, thanks to the hard work of Cancer Research UK scientists, much more is known about the disease."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article