Size, color and frequency of skin moles

Fair-skinned people are the ones who commonly get Skin moles. Moles usually form when melanocytes group together in the form of a cluster. Some moles will be present right from birth, while some other moles will develop during later phases of your life. There will be around ten to forty moles per person and it is usually located in areas exposed to sun light.

Statistics show that, in America alone, more than three hundred Americans have moles. These common moles are called nevi. Similarly the number of Americans with dysplastic nevus is around one in ten people. This will be close to thirty million people. This is not an alarming fact. The fact that nearing seventy thousand people develop melanoma in a year is a matter of great concern. The danger of melanoma is high because it is metastatic. Thus your lungs, bones and kidneys can also get affected. The earlier you detect, the safer is your health condition.

You will have no other option, when you have been diagnosed with melanoma. You must have those skin moles removed through surgical procedures. Melanoma is found in both men and women, though in different parts of their body. In women, it mainly appears in the lower part of the legs. The neck and back region is the usual place for men to have melanoma. Melanoma rarely affects people with dark complexion. When they do get it, however, they are found under the toes or the soles of the feet. Two in ten thousand Americans experience this skin problem. Melanoma has inflicted itself upon eight lakh Americans to date.

Can a layman find the difference between a common mole and melanoma?

The distinction can be found in the color and size of the skin moles. The width of melanoma can reach around six mm. This is larger than the size of a normal pencil eraser. Dysplastic nevus is around five mm wide. Although larger than melanoma, dysplastic nevi are benign. On the other hand, normal moles reach half an inch in width. They can also be as wide as three to four inches.

You can easily identify a melanoma, as it normally has an uneven color distribution. The shades of color will vary. The colors could vary from black, brown, blue, grey, pink and white. Dysplastic nevus will be having shades of brown, pink and red color. Nevus, however, will only have one color. Normally, you will see them in shades of brown or black. Those moles that are highly pigmented will be complete black in color. The color of a normal skin mole is somewhat closer to the skin tone of each person. The contour of melanoma is blurred. They will normally be four mm wide and will grow even larger as the skin cancer becomes worse.

Moles are not threatening. They do not have to be mandatorily removed. However, they may cause social awkwardness to some people. This might lead to lack of confidence. Some cultures in the world consider moles to be beauty marks, provided they appear on certain spots of the body. Everybody desires to be perfect.