Catching the silent killer

The skin cancers represent the two endpoints of cancers: one of them is almost 'benign' while the other is an aggressive killer. One can live with a non-melanoma skin cancer on their skin for years without any serious consequences, while a melanoma type of skin cancer can kill someone in 1-2 years.

The melanoma is the cancer of the melanocytes found in the top layer (epidermis) of the skin. Here there are no blood or lymph vessels. Thus while the melanoma grows within this layer it cannot spread into distant organs. That is why it is crucial catching and removing the melanoma in early stage.

Unfortunately the early stage melanoma looks like a normal mole and extremely difficult to catch it.

That�s why the mole checks or skin cancer screenings are so essential.

To highlight this point I would like to draw on some cases from the last couple of weeks where you can see melanomas invisible to the naked eye. The only way we have been able to diagnose these melanomas is our comparative analysis technology done after the mole check in our teledermatology assessment centre. The key here is that we don�t select among moles, we take a detailed mole-map and compare each and every mole with its previous stages. If someone cares about only the suspicious lesions one can easily miss a melanoma.

The first case is a 43 years old female patient who has mole checks with us since 2009. Her risk for having skin cancer is low based on the typical risk factors. By the forth screening we have been able to catch this melanoma in its earliest stage (in situ) with the comparative analysis where we saw the changes. Neither the patient nor the doctor making the mole check was able to see anything.

The second case is a 46 years old male patient having mole checks with us since 2007, again with low risk for skin cancer since having only 5 moles all together. By his last mole check at January 2014 we have been able to identify a changing mole that turned out to be a melanoma in situ (the earliest stage). Again, neither the patient nor the doctor making the mole check was able to see anything.

Next case is a 36 year old female patient having mole checks with us since 2008 with an average risk for skin cancers. We could diagnose her melanoma only based on the comparative analysis at her recent mole check in December 2013. Neither the patient nor the doctor making the mole check was able to see anything. (melanoma malignum, Clark II, Breslow 0,252mm).

And finally here is an interesting case of a 42 year old female patient. She came for her first mole check at January 2013. We recommended removal of an irregular mole on her left thigh, but she didn�t take this advice seriously. She came back for her follow-up comparative analysis on January 2014 where we saw the changes and this time we diagnosed it as a melanoma. Histology revealed a Clark II, Breslow 0,25mm melanoma; not in its earliest stage, but still in time.

What do you think about the significance of mole checks? Would you be able to detect these lesions on your skin?