Researchers have recently discovered a new way to tell if an odd-looking mole is about to become a malignant one just by looking at its genetic changes.
And they have proven that those who have moles should not let the sun get anywhere near them. Ultraviolet radiation from it instantly causes the genetic mutations that finally shove a mole over forcing it to transform into a melanoma, they reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Dr. Boris Bastian of the University of California San Francisco, a pathologist who helped lead the study, said that the UV radiation turns moles into melanoma. He also stressed out that moles do not and will never belong under the sun.
Bastian and colleagues leaped into an archive of moles that has recently mutated into a malignant melanoma taken from 37 patients around the world. They ordered the DNA from the tumors and compared it to the DNA from healthy tissue that is almost always taken from around the tumor to be sure that all the cancer cells are removed.
Bastian explained that moles have unique genetic mutation that makes them moles, but it's not dangerous. Melanomas, on the other hand regularly have additional genetic mutations. What the researchers also uncover was that these mutations build up over a period of time. They found an excess in mutations in parts of the mole where shouldn't have had any because it has not turned cancerous yet.
Bastian stated that what they have seen are the kind of changes that can be found in the benign stages. This only means that melanoma is similar to other forms of cancers too, such as colon cancer or cervical cancer, which start with benign growths that can progress to a life-sucking kind of cancer.
Skin cancer experts had also disagreed on the idea of whether an intermediate stage in melanoma, between a normal harmless mole and a malignancy can really happen. This study however proves there is one, and it's decided by the number of mutations that take place and the kind of mutations that happens.
