{"id":293034,"date":"2025-11-15T10:47:32","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T10:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/293034\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T10:47:32","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T10:47:32","slug":"a-ct-doctor-warns-of-silent-killer-hitting-some-populations-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/293034\/","title":{"rendered":"A CT doctor warns of silent killer hitting some populations more"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Brett Sloan,<\/a> who has worked as a dermatologist for 31 years, has seen firsthand the effects of certain cancers on military veterans.<\/p>\n

Sloan served 16 years of active duty in the United States Air Force and has treated many veterans over the last several years at the Connecticut Veteran\u2019s Administration Hospital in Newington before leaving the hospital in March. He is talking about cancers of the skin.<\/p>\n

Sloan said when he was deployed to Southeast Asia, sunscreen was not given out freely and would have been hard to use because all of the sand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see it a lot in Vietnam vets with the nature of their jobs and we also saw it World War II vets when there were more of them around,\u201d Sloan said. \u201cThese wars have taken place in high sun intensity.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 2024 study entitled Skin Cancer and Other Dermatologic Conditions Among U.S. Veterans<\/a> that was conducted by the Journal of the American Medical Association<\/a> determined that there is a higher prevalence of skin cancer history, melanoma and psoriasis diagnosis among U.S. veterans compared to nonveterans.<\/p>\n

One of the more striking numbers of the JAMA study showed that veterans have a 9% higher likelihood of having skin cancer compared to 2.9% for the civilian population.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a real problem in this population,\u201d said Sloan, who is also a professor of dermatology at UConn School of Medicine<\/a>. \u201cStudies show higher incidents of melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancers among veterans due to the nature of their work. They are outside all of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stafford Springs resident Michael Puttin, a retired First-Class Machinist Mate in the U.S. Navy, said he is considered 90% disabled by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs<\/a> and has dealt with skin cancer since retiring from the military.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was referred to the dermatology department at the VA for possible skin cancer and lesions,\u201d Puttin said. \u201cIt turns out it was skin cancer, and I\u2019ve had 30 operations to remove skin cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Puttin, 72, believes his condition stems from his 21 years in the Navy, which he joined in 1971. He spent half of his two-plus decades stationed in Florida. He also spent time in the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, as well as three years in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are deployed to other countries like Iraq and Afghanistan that are countries with a lot of sun exposure,\u201d Puttin said.<\/p>\n

Puttin, a Philadelphia native, said he has fair skin and was more vulnerable than other vets and that he started having issues about five years after he retired from the Navy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would see him every three to six months for skin cancer,\u201d Sloan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would biopsy and diagnose his skin cancer and send him to UConn to have his procedure done. There are countless patients just like him at the VA. There are hundreds. It\u2019s a great place for our residents to learn how to diagnose and treat skin cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Puttin has undergone multiple operations, including Mohs surgery<\/a> at UConn. According to the the Mayo Clinic, \u201cMohs surgery is a procedure used to treat skin cancer. This surgery involves cutting away thin layers of skin. Each thin layer is looked at closely for signs of cancer. The process keeps going until there are no signs of cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

After everything he has been through, Puttin recommends that all of his fellow veterans to get tested and treated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is something that\u2019s very important for all veterans to think about,\u201d he said. \u201cSkin cancer is a silent killer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr. Brett Sloan, who has worked as a dermatologist for 31 years, has seen firsthand the effects of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[20242,153415,15861,84144,15862,97,252,253,983,3,36854,79391,153416,3511],"class_list":["post-293034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-connecticut-news","tag-connecticut-veterans-administration-hospital","tag-ct-news","tag-dermatologist","tag-hartford-courant","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-skin-cancer","tag-uconn-health","tag-uconn-school-of-medicine","tag-veterans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}