Skincare Treated

Melanoma is a Malignant Skin Cancer

The term melanoma is derived from the words melanin and melanocyte. To understand the kind of skin cancer called melanoma, let’s understand brush up on our understanding of how the skin gets its pigment.

What is Melanin?

What’s the connection? Skin is pigmented due to the presence of melanin. This pigment is produced in cells called melanocytes in the lower layer of the epidermis.

Dark-skinned people have more melanin in the skin while fair-skin people have less of it. The basic function of melanin is to protect the skin against sun damage. The melanin or pigment prevents the cells in the lower layers of the skin from being killed and from DNA damage from overexposure to ultraviolet light in the sun.

Melanoma is a skin cancer that develops when melanocytes reproduce excessively and form tumours on the skin. Some of these grow on the surface while others burrow into the lower layer of the skin called the dermis.

Cutaneous Melanoma

Melanoma of the skin is called cutaneous melanoma. But the melanocytes are also present in the eyes, meninges of the brain, in the digestive tract, lymph nodes, and in the bowels. Hence, not all melanoma cancers are associated with the skin.

Melanoma accounts for the majority of skin cancer deaths. This is because the other common forms of skin cancer – basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma – are not malignant.

However, melanoma spreads, or is metastatic, and may travel in the bloodstream to any other organ of the body.

How does it spread?

When it does spread, one of the first places it shows up in is the lymph nodes. The lymphatic system, in fact, is meant to protect the body from invaders and harmful substances such as bacteria and cancer cells.

All types of skin cancer are a result of overexposure to the harmful ultraviolet rays of the sun. It is therefore important to study the relationship between sun damage and melanoma.

Excessive exposure to the sun results in a tan. This is a process whereby excess melanin is produced by a process called melanogenesis to prevent photodamage to the skin. However, if a tan does form, it signals that the presence of direct DNA damage to the skin cells. The reddish color of a tan is the result of the oxidation of melanin.

However, the skin cells quickly repair themselves and in a couple of days, the tan fades.

Prolonged sun exposure leads to a lasting tan, which leads to permanently heightened levels of melanogenesis. This is related to the skin cancer called melanoma.

However, since first-time or primary melanoma also occurs in the internal organs of the body, not all melanoma is caused by overexposure to ultraviolet light.

What Causes Melanoma?

Scientists are at a loss to explain what exactly causes melanoma. But there are certain factors that predispose some individuals to the cancer. This means that these individuals are more prone to the disease.

Individuals who have dysplastic nevi or atypical moles are at greater risk. Unlike ordinary moles, which are a collection of excess melanocytes, dysplastic moles are irregular in shape and their color too changes from time to time.

Men are more prone to developing them on the trunk while tend to develop them on the calves of the leg.

Also, individuals with a multitude of ordinary moles are more prone to contracting melanoma.

Another risk factor is fair skin. Fair-skinned individuals have less melanin in their skin and since this makes them more prone to sunburn, their chances of developing melanoma are probably greater.

Some individuals are genetically predisposed to melanoma. This means that the greater the number of relatives who have the cancer, the greater are your chances of developing it.