Melanoma is one of the deadliest forms of skin cancer due to multiple reasons. One of the main reasons is the fact that suspicious moles and brown spots go unchecked for many years. Without early detection, the cancerous cells accelerate their growth and destroy healthy skin cells.
Melanoma is often caused by too much sun exposure and ultraviolet radiation or tanning beds. This is often caused due to ultraviolet radiations or tanning beds. Genetic mutations are another leading cause for melanoma.
A total of 10,130 people in the US die every year due to melanoma. Although this form of cancer can often lead to death, melanoma is not a common cancerous disease found amongst individuals. Approximately 76,380 were affected by this form of skin cancer, amongst which 46,870 were men and 29,510 were women.
Melanoma Month of May
May is officially the month of melanoma. This was done in order to spread awareness about the disease. Although this disease is curable, often individuals are not aware of the symptoms which makes the disease deadly and hard to cure. The lack of awareness often causes death.
This month is utilized to make people realize the seriousness of a symptom and how to analyze whether it is serious or not. The symptoms of melanoma are not that obvious which is why most people miss it. One of the first signs of a developing skin cancer is a pimple or a boil. It is bigger than a zit and can be red, brown, blue, purple, or black in color.
Other ways of identifying the onset of malignant cancer is to check if the pimple or boil develops a crust or a scab. It may often bleed and be extremely painful to touch. On touching, it will also feel soft and itchy. The boil is swollen and has a strange shape, it is not round like any other ordinary boil. The size is bigger than a pencil eraser, and also has irregular edges.
Apart from this there are other symptoms that you should look out for. For example a dark streak under your toenail or fingernail. It can also be in the form of a patch of dark skin around the fingernail or toenail. You should also be aware of age spots, a patch, or a plaque of skin that may look like a scar.
Treat Melanoma with MOH treatment
Melanoma is treatable, provided it is diagnosed in its nascent stage. Mohs micrographic surgery is a procedure used on malignant tumors. It was invented in 1930 by Dr. Frederick Mohs. This method has been worked on and improved over the decades. Doctors have made it an even more effective surgery than it was.
Through a surgical procedure the infected part of the tissue is removed without highly damaging the healthy tissue. The chances of extracting the cancer are up to 98% or even higher with the Mohs method.
One of the reasons it is successful is because the microscopic analysis of the unhealthy tissue is done during the surgery rather than after it, thus reducing the chances of relapse. This technique also increases the chances of a successful outcome.
