Melanoma Causes and Risk Factors

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Melanoma is the most dangerous type of skin cancer and the one that caused most of death in skin cancer. Up until now, no one knows what the exact cause of melanoma is. However, based on study on several groups who had melanoma skin cancer, there are several risk factors that can increase in getting melanoma:

• Race
  Caucasians 5-20 fold increased melanoma risk over Africans, East Asians, Hispanics.
• Family History
  Multiple genetic events have been related to the pathogenesis of melanoma. People who there is a family that has melanoma history has 10% more melanoma risk.
• Environment/geographic location
  People who live in place with a lot of sun exposure have a higher melanoma risk.
  
  
• Nevi ("moles")
  Moles in themselves will increase the risk for skin melanoma. About 70% of skin melanoma has a pre-existing mole at the cancer site; this is one reason why one of the famous "7 signs of cancer" includes a change in a wart or mole. Interestingly, people continue to develop nevi throughout life. By age age 30, men have about 40 nevi that were not present at birth, mostly on the trunk and arms. This is one reason why the incidence of melanoma increases with age. Fortunately, only one of a million moles becomes malignant.
• Skin pigmentation and propensity for sunburn
  Chronic Irritation is the underlying the development of many types of cancer. Irritants include chiicals ("carcinogens"), sunburn, or tanning bed, ultraviolet light, radiation, and trauma causing scars to form in an area. Anything that damages cells over time will cause specific ones in damaged area to divide and try to repair damage. The more divisions, the more chance of something going awry in the division mechanism leading to uncontrolled growth -- this is cancer and starts with a "screw-up" in just a single cell. Thus anything which is continuously irritating (i.e. cigarette smoke, b sunlight) should be avoided to minimize the risk of developing any type of cancer over time.

Main article: Melanoma Sub-types