New Traits Signal Fast-Growing Melanoma
A new study about skin cancer might surprise you and trained healthcare professionals alike.
According to research published this week in the December issue of the Archives of Dermatology, melanomas that are thicker, symmetrical, or elevated, have regular borders, and are accompanied by symptoms like itching or bleeding tend to grow more quickly. The study also found that such melanomas were more likely to occur in men older than 70 and people with few freckles or moles.
"Rapidly growing melanomas do not look like a mole and do not fit the description encoded by the ABCD rule (asymmetry, border irregularity, color irregularity, large diameter)," which often indicates a problem, writes lead researcher Wendy Liu of the Victorian Melanoma Service at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, via E-mail. International public health efforts tout the ABCD rule as a way to help people identify potentially harmful skin growths. Liu's research doesn't contest the rule but suggests a need for awareness about other kinds of deadly lesions and growths.
The study involved 404 subjects with invasive melanomas. All had skin examinations and pathology reviews and were interviewed about their melanoma and medical history. Researchers developed a "rate of growth index" based on the melanoma's thickness and the time it took for the melanoma to develop. Faster rates of growth were associated with faster mitotic rates, or the rates at which the cancer cells multiplied.
Other characteristics that were not associated with the rate of growth were age spots and liver spots, history of sun damage or blistering sunburns, family history of melanoma, and eye color. One third of the melanomas grew less than 0.1 mm per month; one third grew between 0.1 and 0.49 mm; and one third grew by 0.5 mm or more per month.
"This [research] is probably more important to doctors than the general public," says James Spencer, professor of clinical dermatology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. The findings that the rapidly growing melanomas tended to be symmetrical, have even borders, and to occur in people who didn't have a lot of freckles or moles were especially surprising, he said.
"These are things that we as doctors associate with benignness." One out of five people who gets a melanoma dies of it, says Spencer. "We've got to raise the level of suspicion."
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