What is melanoma?

Shockingly, two-in-three Australians will be diagnosed with skin cancer in their lifetime and approximately 2000 Australians will lose their lives to the disease each year.

But if caught early, most melanoma can be cured by surgery.

Melanoma is a cancer that develops from melanocytes (pigment cells) which can then spread via your blood and lympathic system to other organs such as a young lung, liver and brain.

Melanoma generally usually occurs on parts of the body that have been sunburned. However, melanomas can sometimes start in parts of the skin or other parts of the body that have never been exposed to the sun. 

A melanoma may appear as a new spot on normal skin, or develop from an existing mole. They usually begin as a flat spot that changes in size or shape or colour over months, but a less common type of melanoma (called nodular melanoma) is not flat, but is raised from the start. These melanomas are often pink or red, and grow quickly.  Visit the How do I check my skin page for more information on what to look out for.

Melanoma causes

People can be at greater risk of melanoma if they have one or more of the following:

• large numbers of moles
• large, irregularly shaped and unevenly coloured moles called dysplastic nevi
• previous melanomas
• many severe sunburns
• other people in the family who have had melanoma (a ‘family history’)

Each time your unprotected skin is exposed to the sun’s UV radiation or other sources of UV radiation such as solariums, the UV radiation causes changes the structure of the cells and in what they do.

Too much UV radiation causes the skin to become permanently damaged and this damage worsens with more UV radiation. The most important years for sun protection are during childhood, as sunburn and overexposure to UV radiation during these years greatly increase the chance of melanoma.

Melanoma is common in people with naturally fair complexions who are exposed to higher levels of UV radiation than their skin can protect them against. People with naturally darker skins (for example, Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders) are much better protected against UV radiation but can still get melanomas.

Melanoma is diagnosed most often in older adults, but it also sometimes occurs in younger adults and occasionally in teenagers. It is rarely seen in children.        

Find out your risk of melanoma by using our melanoma risk calculator.