Amelanotic Nodular Melanoma – technical name for pink melanoma

Amelanotic nodular melanoma is the jargon-y term for my pink melanoma. Referencing yesterday’s post, nodular melanoma is one of the types of melanoma. Unfortunately, it differs from other melanoma types due to its aggressive nature and the fact that it often it overlooked because it doesn’t appear to be anything more than a bump in its early stages.

When I got my diagnosis, I immediately went online to see what it was, and in many ways, to see what I had overlooked. I mean, I had done some image searches online when my spot popped up like a thermometer in a turkey; but there was nothing in the “bad” category that looked like my spot. So, I wasn’t in a hurry to go get it checked out. I must have missed something, right?

The honest answer is most of the images I saw of nodular melanoma were black, brown. They looked kind of gross. If I had had that on my knee, I probably would have run to the nearest dermatologist. I mean, doesn’t that look like something you should be concerned about?

typical nodular melanoma

But then I realized there was that word in the beginning – amelanotic. According to Wikipedia, amelanotic melanoma is a type of skin cancer in which the cells do not make melanin – the pigment in your cells – the stuff that gives you a tan. Of course, the photo accompanying the Wikipedia article is taken from a dog. WTF? They couldn’t have a photo of what it looks like in humans?

The definition on Wikipedia is very brief, but it does mention that it can be pink, red, purple, or normal skin color. Gee, that sounds familiar. (And I will admit that flesh-colored melanoma is the scariest thing I’ve ever heard of. How are you supposed to recognize that?) And the next sentences stopped me in my tracks. Because of the appearance of this type of melanoma, there is often a delay in diagnosis, which leads to a poor prognosis and high rate of recurrence, which leads to a very high fatality rate.

And that’s the end of the Wikipedia entry. Not something that gave warm fuzzies. And what was with the short entry? Isn’t there even photos of this stuff in humans for reference? Diving in deeper led me to a lot of very dense medical articles that briefly mentioned amelanotic melanoma as an aside. To be blunt, this type of skin cancer is so not common, we don’t even get more than a few sentences about it. According to the Cleveland Clinic, amelanotic melanoma occurs in only 5% of nodular melanomas.

Let’s go back to my people in a room scenario from yesterday. Remember we had to get 500 people with skin cancer in a room to even get to 2 people with nodular melanoma. We’d had to raise that number by a factor of 10 to get even one person (statistically) with amelanotic melanoma. It’s not one in a million rare, but it is pretty uncommon.

I finally found an image that looks kind of like how mine looked:

Amelanotic nodular melanoma (not mine)

That sure as hell doesn’t look as scary as the image up at the top, does it? And that’s the problem. Because it doesn’t look like anything you need to be worried about, you don’t rush to the dermatologist. You wait, which can be a fatal mistake since nodular melanoma is so aggressive. From some of the articles I’ve read, it can appear and grow to Stage 4 in less than a year! (Hopefully, not in mine – knock on wood)… Even if you get annual skin cancer checks at the dermatologist, this type can roar into a monster in between check-ups.

And that’s why it’s so important for people to do their own monthly skin checks. Shoot, I’ll be doing daily skin checks every time I put on my lotion after a shower; but really, if you put on lotion every day, do a baseline check today. Look at all your moles and freckles so you will know if any of them start to look a little different – a little darker, or a little bigger. And once you get familiar with your skin, you’ll know if something new pops up. I know, it’s hard to notice on some areas that you can’t see everyday. And that’s why doing a monthly self check is important. Get a hand mirror or use a tall mirror and check out the skin on your back, on the backs of your legs – all those places you normally have to contort to see.

And if you get a raised bump in an area where you never had a mole or freckle, even if it’s pink (or flesh color), go to the dermatologist and ask for them to check it out. I’m not one to advocate running to the doctor for every sniffle or sneeze, but changes in your skin that veer from the ordinary should fall under the “I’ll go to the doctor for this sooner rather than later” category. Early detection and early treatment are key to getting to what is actually a comforting statistic – if melanoma (even amelanotic nodular melanoma) is caught early and treated before progressing to Stage 3 – which is when the cancer begins to spread – the 5-year survival rate is 91% (according to the Cleveland Clinic). That’s a statistic that I would be very happy to be part of…