Skin Cancer Forum - Mole removal and melanoma

Cancer > Skin Cancer Forum > Mole removal and melanoma

What is melanoma? This section give you a quick intro to this particular type of skin cancer, including the entire range of types of melanomas....

Q: Mole removal and melanoma

asked by: DoctorQuestion on March 14th, 2009

Doctor,

I had a mole punch biopsied one month ago, and the results came back only mildly atypical. I then had surgery to have the mole removed, and have now been diagnosed as having Clark level III or IV melanoma (have to wonder how the heck did that discrepency happened!?).

I do not have a family doctor, and my only planned follow-up so far is to have the general surgeon see me for a check-up in ten days, let the scar heal and then re-excise the area around the mole with wider margins in 6 weeks.

I am confused why further tests aren't being done to see if the cancer has spread already (eg blood tests, X-rays, lymph node biopsy). I am also very concerned that I have to wait 6 weeks for surgery, especially since the tests suggest variance in the nevus over a three week period (could it possibly progress that fast??). Also, why am I not getting a referal to a cancer clinic?

Does my planned treatment sound reasonable to you or is there any legitimacy to my concerns?

Replies(4)

Dr. Goce Aleksovski , MD

replied on March 14th, 2009

Skin Cancer Answer A6042

Clark’s staging system for melanomas does not take affection of lymph nodes into consideration. It is based solely on the histological results of the melanoma. The different stages indicate different layers of the skin affected. It does not say something about the growth speed of the tumor. You can not compare the results since no identical staging systems were used.
Lymph node biopsy in the vicinity is done if enlarged lymph nodes are manually detected.

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Comments (3)

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