subject: Particulars About Skin Moles [print this page] Fair-skinned people are the ones who commonly get skin moles. Skin moles are developed, when melanocytes are clustered together. Some moles will be present right from birth, while some other moles will develop during later phases of your life. It is normal for one person to get around ten to forty moles in parts of their body commonly exposed to the sun.
When you look at the statistics of the number of people having moles in America, you can find that more than three hundred million people have moles. These are common moles and are termed as nevus. On the other hand, one in ten people in America has dysplastic nevus. That is about thirty million people in all. That isn't so alarming, however. Approximately seventy thousand people having melanoma in one year is quite alarming, though. The danger of melanoma is high because it is metastatic. Other organs could be affected, like your kidney, lungs and even your bones. The earlier you detect, the safer is your health condition.
Once it has been confirmed that you have melanoma, you have no other choice. You must remove those moles from your skin completely through surgery. The location of melanoma is different in male and female. For women, melanoma appears in their lower legs. In men, it can be seen in the neck and back region. Those who have dark skin will seldom suffer from melanoma. But if they do suffer, it is mainly located underneath the toe or palm or the sole of feet. In fact two people out of ten thousand Americans experience this problem. Melanoma has inflicted itself upon eight lakh Americans to date.
Can a layman correctly identify which is a skin mole and which is a melanoma?
The color and size of skin moles can be used to make the distinction. Melanoma reaches around six mm in width. This is larger than the size of a normal pencil eraser. Dysplastic nevus is around five mm wide. Though it is a little smaller compared to melanoma, it is benign. Normal moles are just half an inch wide. They can also be as wide as three to four inches.
You can easily tell, if it is melanoma if you notice the color distribution is uneven. The shades of color will vary. Some people might be having shades of black and brown, while others might have shades of white, red, pink, blue or gray color. Normally, dysplastic nevus will have brown, pink and red shades. Nevus, however, will only have one color. Normally, you will see them in shades of brown or black. The black moles will be the highly-pigmented ones. The skin tone of the person will largely resemble the color of the mole if it is a normal one. Melanoma has blurred contour regions. The diameter of moles will be more than four mm in width and this size keeps increasing as skin cancer progresses further.
Moles, are not at all dangerous. They do not have to be mandatorily removed. For some people, they are cause of social awkwardness. This might lead to lack of confidence. In some cultures, moles at certain spots are regarded as beauty marks. Everybody desires to be perfect.
