Skin Cancer Moles

Skin Cancer Moles are almost always Melanoma

Skin cancer moles are moles that once looked normal, brown and raised or somewhat flat.  They turned at some point to be dark black, yellow or a different color brown.  The pigment might spread beyond the border of the original skin cancer moles.  The pigment can be multicolored.

These are the typical malignant melanoma symptoms you’ll see.

In skin cancer moles, you may have no pain.

You may only have some itching.

The skin cancer moles can become ulcerated and bleed. If you have an itchy or bleeding mole, it should be seen by a doctor to make sure it isn’t one of the melanoma symptoms.

They may not be something that feels differently to you at all.

Cause of Melanoma

The cause of melanoma is basically sunshine and exposure to UVA and UVB rays from tanning beds or the sun.  The UVA and UVB rays damage the deep layers of the sun and cause sunburn.  They cause the melanocytes in the skin to grow out of control.

The skin melanocytes are the pigment-making cells of the skin.  They cause the skin to be dark when you tan.  The cause of melanoma is damage to the melanocytes that cause them to become cancerous.  When melanocytes grow out of control, they turn into a malignant melanoma.

Because the melanocytes are the cause of melanoma, the look of the skin cancer is pigmented, often with a multicolor look to it.  The skin cancer can be black, dark brown, light brown, yellow or even pink.

Look for signs of a multicolor or very black mole when looking for those suspicious for malignant melanoma.

Treatment of Skin Cancer Moles

If you have a skin cancer mole, it is likely to need immediate treatment.  The skin cancer surgeon will remove the area of skin cancer.  The surgeon will also remove a large margin of healthy tissue from around the mole, including the part of the tissue deep to the mole.

Skin cancer moles can grow deep in the skin.  The deeper the mole, the worse is the melanoma prognosis.    The doctor wants to make sure that the deeper tissues are free of melanoma.

The doctor also wants to know what the depth of the skin cancer mole is.  The melanoma prognosis is determined by the depth of the mole so that they need to measure how deep the skin cancer moles are.

Chemotherapy can be used to treat malignant melanoma.  Doctors try to kill any cells that aren’t removed by surgery.  Radiation can be used directly on areas involved by malignant melanoma.  These can be where the melanoma first started or on larger metastatic areas of cancer.

Melanoma Prognosis

There are several things that determine the melanoma prognosis.  One is the depth of the skin cancer mole. The other is the presence of lymph nodes that have cancer in them.  Finally, the presence of melanoma in other body areas determines the melanoma prognosis.

The staging of melanoma is determined by the TNM staging method, where T stands for how big the tumor is and how thick it has become.  N stands for nearby lymph nodes that might be involved in cancer.  M stands for metastases that might be there with cancer in other body areas.

The higher the TNM stage, the worse the chances are with the cancer.  More people die with a high TNM stage than those with a low TNM stage. Doctors try to determine the stage of the skin cancer at the time the skin cancer mole is discovered.  They do this through surgery and testing, such as CT scans and ultrasounds.

Melanoma Prognosis by Stage

If skin cancer moles are in situ, meaning that it is shallow and has not spread, surgery will get rid of it 100 percent of the time in most cases.  The thickness of the tumor is what makes the biggest difference.  If the tumor is less than 1.5 mm deep, the tumor is in stage I and is mostly curable.

If the tumor is 1.5 to 4 mm thick but hasn’t spread to lymph nodes, it is stage II.  If the tumor is stage III, the tumor is less than 4 mm thick and may have spread to lymph nodes.  If the cancer has spread to different lymph nodes or different body sites, it is stage IV.  The 5 year survival rate is less than 10 percent if the tumor is stage IV.

Overall more than 70% of people with malignant melanoma will survive past 5 years.  This is only if they get prompt treatment by a team of cancer specialists.  Sometimes, the cancer is found too late and the melanoma prognosis is poor.

Dr. Christine Traxler

4 6 2010