Most skin cancers are not generally considered very dangerous, since they are easily cured by surgery or medicines applied to the skin. The malignant mole called melanoma, which means black tumor , is a notable exception. Not only is melanoma the most malignant of all skin cancers, but if it spreads to other organs, it is among the most malignant of all cancers.
Melanoma can spread to nearly every organ and tissue in the body and can lead to death within a year after it recurs in distant sites. Although it is very rare for a mother's tumor to spread to her fetus, melanomas lead the list among those tumors that do spread in this way. Melanoma is also one of the most common tumors to spread to the brain and spinal cord.
Melanoma is not yet among the most common cancers, but its incidence is rising faster worldwide than any other. In Canada, more than 3,050 cases are expected during 1995.
Yet amidst all these bleak aspects there are some very encouraging ones. When melanoma first appears as a malignant mole of the skin or eye—and occasionally on the gums, in the vagina or in the anus—it is often curable by limited surgery.
