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Sun Shy
Understanding and Preventing Melanoma
By Aneema Van Groenou, M.D.
Melanomas are ugly. They are not nice, round and evenly colored like our moles that we know and love. Luckily, melanomas have a few characteristics that you can use to distinguish them from harmless freckles or moles.
Melanomas grow quickly, have irregular borders and coloring, and can produce a prickling or tender sensation. A melanoma may also act like a sore that doesn't heal, lasting more than four weeks, or healing and then re-opening. It may also itch, become scaly, crust over, scab and bleed.
Early signs of melanoma are slight changes in an existing mole, like scaling or a new black area. In advanced melanoma, the mole may actually change texture; it may become hard and rough or start to ooze and bleed. Melanomas usually do not cause pain.
Melanoma can develop as a new mole or can develop near an old mole, changing what it looks like. In men, melanomas typically occur between the shoulder blades, on the head and neck, and on the hips. In women, melanoma is most commonly found on the lower legs. Lesions may not be completely obvious, since they can develop under fingernails or on the soles of your feet.
Your doctor should include a careful exam of your skin with your routine checkup. If you have a mole that looks suspicious, your physician may recommend observing it to see if it changes or may recommend getting a biopsy (or skin sample of the mole).
A biopsy is the only way to diagnose melanoma. After numbing up the area around the skin with a local anesthetic (you will be awake and the procedure can be done in the doctor's office), a small sample of mole is removed. This piece of skin is examined under a microscope for cancerous cells. If the mole is small, your doctor may remove the whole mole, called an excisional biopsy, in the hopes that, if there is some melanoma, it will have been removed.
