•••quote:•••Originally posted by kutastha:
•There are several different kinds of melanoma. For example, ocular, pulmonary, and the most common one, skin. A malignant melanoma is pretty much a late-stage tumor, i.e. just beginning vertical growth more than radial. You can have congenital nevi, which have the potential to become melanoma, then move on up to primary melanoma, secondary, then malignant. It is by far the most treatable of all cancers, since it's visible, of course. However, 90-95% of untreated melanoma have the ability to metastasize, and that's pretty bad news. The reason is because once the vertical growth phase begins, the tumor is so close to the vasculature that it can easily slough off into the blood stream and hit the liver or lungs. From there, it's pretty bad news.
Wear sunscreen and get your moles checked.•••••Hey kutastha,
I don't mean this to sound insulting -- but I think you are confusing malignant with metastatic. The definition of malignant being the potential to metastasize. Even primary melanoma (melanoma in stages 1 or 2) is malignant, because it has the potential to metastasize, and a relatively high potential at that (although the deeper the lesion gets the higher the potential of metastasis it is). Primary melanoma is just a staging of the cancer, not a different disease or type of melanoma. Even primary melanoma has only a 78% 10-year survival rate, according to Cecil's. The most advanced stage of melanoma is metastatic melanoma (not malignant melanoma, since they are all malignant).
As far as the different types of cancers you mentioned -- they are all the same tumor, just in different parts of the body. I agree with you about the melanocytic nevus having the potential to become a melanoma, but it is not a melanoma itself.
