Where one tumor is, a second is possible

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One cannot get black cancer only once. A special attention is necessary within the first year of the primary diagnosis.

You are not immune after a black cancer disease: patients who have survived a first malignant melanoma, are not immune to develop a second skin tumor. Within the first year after detection there is the highest risk. This comes from a scientific report of the Cancer journal.

Thus, it is not rare that a second malignant melanoma occurs – about eight percent of a study of 788 patients with malignant melanoma developed at least one more melanoma in the following years. Most of them occurred within one year after their primary diagnoses. People over 60 years old were more at risk than younger people.

The Researchers have also investigated the biological properties of the primary and secondary tumors  in tissue samples . They did not find any significant differences.  Previous analyses  have shown that the secondary tumors were thinner than the primary on average and they have also a better prognosis. According to the authors of the study, this fact has nothing to with a different

Source: http://www.krebsgesellschaft.de/news_detail,4063,,205815,detail.html

Hwa, C. et al.: Single versus multiple primary melanomas. Old questions and new answers. Cancer, Onlinevorabveröffentlichung am 13. Januar 2012, DOI: 10.1002/cncr.27407

 

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