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Dermatology (Expert Forum)
Need Your Advice -- Nevi, Growths
Answered by
Alan Rockoff, MD - dermatology, Child Skin Problems
The Rockoff Dermatology Center
Brookline - MA
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Need Your Advice -- Nevi, Growths
by Mountbattn, Oct 15, 2007 09:58PM
Dr. Rockoff:
I'm a 39 yr old caucasian male with dysplastic nevi and one in situ melanoma (back) diagnosed this year--Stage I, re-excised along with lymph node removal. No complications, all very neat and tidy. On track with 3 mo. checkups & mole mapping. Here's my concern: now that my dermatologist's threshold for suspicious moles has lowered, she is scaring the daylights out of me because it seems to me that she now sees melanomas all over my back. Guess I should be thankful for the vigilance ... Now she's concerned about one on my waist/buttocks. It's a fairly flat, pencil eraser-sized red growth that I thought was a "carbuncle," or boil, and which appeared earlier this year. Going in to have it and two nevi removed this week.
Doc, here are my two questions: first, since I have a history, how many more melanomas could I get? And would that history make me more prone to a nodular melanoma, which is what worries me about the waist/buttocks growth. Thanks for helping a very agitated patient.
-- Mountbttn
I'm a 39 yr old caucasian male with dysplastic nevi and one in situ melanoma (back) diagnosed this year--Stage I, re-excised along with lymph node removal. No complications, all very neat and tidy. On track with 3 mo. checkups & mole mapping. Here's my concern: now that my dermatologist's threshold for suspicious moles has lowered, she is scaring the daylights out of me because it seems to me that she now sees melanomas all over my back. Guess I should be thankful for the vigilance ... Now she's concerned about one on my waist/buttocks. It's a fairly flat, pencil eraser-sized red growth that I thought was a "carbuncle," or boil, and which appeared earlier this year. Going in to have it and two nevi removed this week.
Doc, here are my two questions: first, since I have a history, how many more melanomas could I get? And would that history make me more prone to a nodular melanoma, which is what worries me about the waist/buttocks growth. Thanks for helping a very agitated patient.
-- Mountbttn
Doctor's Answer
by Alan Rockoff, MD, Oct 16, 2007 09:46PM
, Oct 16, 2007 09:46PMTo: Mountbattn
having one melanoma does raise the chances of your getting another. However, that doesn't mean the risk is all that high. What you need to do is what you're doing: get regular checks and biopsies when needed. I suspect that as time passes, your dermatologist will find the need to do fewer biopsies, and your anxiety level will diminish too.
Take care.
Dr. Rockoff
Take care.
Dr. Rockoff
