How much do you know about melanoma? Do you know what melanoma is or how it occurs? Melanoma is a kind of skin cancer that starts in skin cells that are called melaocytes. How does melanoma begin? It begins when the pigment skin cells turn malignant. There are several kinds of melanoma including:

Cutaneous melanoma – skin cancer

Ocular melanoma – eye cancer

Intraocular melanoma – eye cancer

Although it rarely occurs, melanoma may come up in the meninges, lymph nodes and digestive tract. It can happen due to where melanocytes are located.

Melanoma is a very common type of cancer. As people get older, their age is a factor in whether they get this cancerous disease. However, even young people can get melanoma. Any part of the skin can be susceptible to the cancer. For men, the disease is seen usually on the trunk, head or neck. For women, melanoma can be found on the lower part of the legs. Although melanoma is commonly found in Caucasians, African Americans or other dark skinned culture can get the disease. However, the disease usually begins under toenails, fingernails, palms or soles.

Doctors cannot clarify why one person with a background similar to another person can get the disease but the other person does not. However, research suggests there are eight risk factors that determine who may or may not get melanoma.

Dysplastic Nevi – Commonly found on the body, they are more likely to become cancerous than usual moles. If a person has a lot of these dysplastic nevi, the risk increases for them to get melanoma.

Ordinary Moles – if there are more than 50 moles on a person’s body, chances of getting melanoma increases.

Fair Skin – Those people can burn or get freckles have a greater chance of getting melanoma. As stated above, African Americans and those of darker skin complications have a reduced chance of getting melanoma.

Prior Melanoma History – Those people who have gotten melanoma before have a good chance of getting the cancer again. People can have more than one melanoma cancers.

Family History – The disease does run in the family. If a person has two or more close family members who have had the disease, this puts them at a elevated risk.

Weakened Immune System – Melanoma can strike people whose immune systems are weakened by other illnesses or diseases such as HIV.

Bad Sunburns – For people who have had numerous blistering sunburns whether they were a child or an adult have an augmented chance of getting melanoma.

UV Radiation – This type of radiation is thought to boost a person’s risk for melanoma. For instance, those exposed to more sun such as people in Texas or Florida are likely to get premature skin aging thus leading to melanoma than those who live in Maine or North Dakota.

As melanoma begins to invade other areas, the patient’s physician may find cancer cells on the lymph nodes. Lymph nodes are everywhere in the body and trap cancer cells, bacteria and other substances that are dangerous. Once the lymph nodes have been compromised, cancer cells could have easily spread to the liver, lungs, brain or any other body part. When this occurs, the new tumor is still considered melanoma cancer, not the cancer of the infected area.