Doctors warn of aggressive form of skin cancer which is six times more likely to kill if it is not removed within two months
Diagnosis delays for nodular melanomas (like the one pictured) mean people with the cancer are six times more likely to die than from other melanomas
Dermatologists have raised the alarm on an aggressive form of melanoma that looks like a harmless pimple but kills hundreds of Australians a year.
Diagnosis delays mean people with the cancer are six times more likely to die than from other melanomas.
Nodular melanomas usually appear on the skin as a red nodule rather than an ugly dark mole, leading doctors to mistake them for relatively harmless forms of skin cancer or even pimples.
But the key difference is that these melanomas are firm to touch, and will not feel soft like a pimple or a mole.
Associate Professor John Kelly has called on doctors to familiarise themselves with the often harmless-looking but deadly melanomas so that more lives can be saved.
Nodular melanomas are particularly aggressive and should be diagnosed within two months, says Associate Professor John Kelly, a speaker at the annual scientific meeting of the Australasian College of Dermatologists in Melbourne.
They are responsible for just 15 per cent of melanoma cases but cause 43 per cent of melanoma deaths.
In Australia, that’s around 550 deaths a year. But health professionals in general are not aware of what to look for, says Prof Kelly.
‘The patient is often told there is nothing to worry about,’ he said.
Prof Kelly has called on doctors to familiarise themselves with the often harmless-looking but deadly nodular melanomas so that more lives can be saved.
Currently, only about 41 per cent of nodular melanomas are accurately suspected to be melanoma at the time of removal.
Nodular melanomas are also more deadly because they grow rapidly in depth – normally at four times the rate of other melanomas.
Warning signs to look out on lumps are that they are new, firm, red, dome-shaped and have been growing progressively bigger for more than a month.
Prof Kelly said nodular melanomas are more common in older men but stressed that anyone can get them.
‘This kind of melanoma we see more often in older men and on the head and neck rather than trunk and limbs,’ he said.
‘But that’s just a slight preference it’s not that they all occur in older men.’
Prof Kelly wants doctors and patients to take urgent action if there’s a ball on the skin that becomes bigger over a couple of months. Some of it is under the skin and some is above.
‘If it has has been present for more than a month and grows bigger and bigger, it needs urgent removal.
‘But we don’t want to cause hysteria about every red nodule that people get.
‘Something that has been stable for more than a year is not going to be a worry. And something that has been present of only days or weeks is probably also not a worry.’
Written by Sarah Michael and published at The Daily Mail, May 29, 2014.
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