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Skin and mole checks
No country in this region invites anyone for a skin check. What replaces it is knowing which change in a mole is worth an appointment — and that new or changing beats ugly.
This page describes screening programmes; it is not a diagnosis, not a personal risk assessment and not a substitute for your own health service. Age bands are set nationally and change — the invitation you receive, and the body named on your country page, outrank anything written here. Screening is for people without symptoms: a new lump, blood you can see, a mole that has changed, unexplained weight loss or a sudden change in vision or hearing needs a clinician now, whatever a recent screening result said.
Where it is organised
Nowhere in this region as an invitation programme. That is a decision rather than an oversight, and the section below explains the reasoning. It also means nothing will arrive in the post: if this is something you want checked, you have to ask for it.
Why there is no programme
Melanoma is serious and getting commoner in fair-skinned northern populations, so the absence of screening surprises people. The reason is that whole-population skin examination has never been shown in a randomised trial to reduce deaths, while it reliably produces a large number of excisions of harmless lesions. Germany is the notable European exception, offering a statutory skin cancer examination from the mid-thirties; its evaluation has been debated for years rather than settled. The rest of the region relies on people bringing changes to a doctor, which puts an unusual amount of weight on knowing what to bring.
New or changing beats ugly
The single most useful rule is not a checklist but a comparison. Most adults have a set of moles that look broadly like each other; the one worth examining is the one that does not belong, or the one that has changed. The familiar ABCDE prompts help — asymmetry, an irregular border, more than one colour, a diameter over about six millimetres, and evolution over weeks or months — but evolution is the one that matters most, and a small changing mole outranks a large stable one. Itching, bleeding, crusting or a lesion that will not heal all deserve an appointment regardless of how it looks.
Where to look, and the ones people miss
Melanoma appears most often on the back in men and on the legs in women, and the back is the one place nobody checks. Someone else, or a phone camera, solves that. The genuinely missed ones are elsewhere: under a nail, where a new dark streak that widens is not a bruise; on the sole of the foot; on the scalp under hair. And the commonest skin cancers are not melanoma at all — basal cell carcinomas, which appear as a pearly, sometimes bleeding spot that never quite heals, usually on sun-exposed skin of the face and are slow and very treatable, and squamous cell carcinomas on chronically exposed skin.
What actually reduces risk
Sunburn does the damage, especially in childhood, and this region has a specific pattern of it: pale skin, a long dark winter, and a burst of intense exposure on a summer holiday or the first sunny weekend in May. That intermittent, intense pattern is the one most strongly associated with melanoma. Shade in the middle of the day, clothing, and sunscreen used in enough quantity and reapplied are the practical measures. Sunbeds are classified as a human carcinogen and several countries in the region restrict them for under-18s.
Sources: National dermatology services; no organised skin cancer screening programme exists in the Nordic or Baltic countries · International Agency for Research on Cancer — classification of ultraviolet tanning devices · checked 2026-09-07
Usein kysytyt kysymykset
Is there a skin cancer screening programme?
Not in the Nordic or Baltic countries. Germany is the notable European exception with a statutory examination from the mid-thirties; elsewhere detection relies on people bringing a change to a doctor.
Which mole should I get checked?
The one that is new, or changing, or that does not look like your others. Change over weeks or months matters more than size or ugliness, and any lesion that itches, bleeds, crusts or fails to heal is worth an appointment.
Where does melanoma usually appear?
Most often on the back in men and on the legs in women. The back is the site people never check themselves, which is a good reason to have someone else look or use a phone camera.
Is a dark line under a nail serious?
A new dark streak under a nail that widens, or spreads onto the surrounding skin, should be examined rather than assumed to be a bruise. A bruise grows out with the nail; this does not.
The rest of the surface
Breast cancer screening (mammography)
An X-ray of each breast, read by two radiologists, repeated every two years across a band of ages that starts at 40 in Sweden and 50 almost everywhere else. What it finds, what it misses and what a call-back means.
Cervical screening (HPV test)
Almost every country in the region has switched from looking for abnormal cells to looking for the virus that causes them. The test is better, so the gap between tests is longer — and in several countries you can now take the sample yourself.
Bowel cancer screening (stool test)
A sample from one bowel movement, taken at home and posted. It is the only screening programme in the region that routinely prevents cancers rather than only finding them early — because the follow-up removes the polyp.
Prostate screening (PSA)
Latvia and Lithuania fund PSA testing for men in their fifties and sixties. Sweden assessed the same evidence and recommends against an organised programme. Here is what the trials actually found.
Lung cancer screening (low-dose CT)
The trials are positive and the European recommendation asks countries to build programmes stepwise. In this region it is still pilots rather than invitations — but the eligibility rule is worth knowing.
What screening can and cannot do
Overdiagnosis, false positives, interval cases and lead-time bias — the four ideas behind every disagreement between countries.
All 27 screening pagesIf the result is not normal
The record that makes the appointment shorter
TempoLife keeps weight, blood pressure, sleep and symptoms in one place, so the questions you get asked at a screening appointment already have answers.