Doctors seeing more melanoma in kids

Doctors are finding that melanoma is developing in teenagers and younger kids. Until recently melanoma was unheard of in children. Pediatric melanoma is still uncommon in children, affecting only 7 per million, or about 500, according to 2002 statistics from the National Cancer Institute. But that number has risen from 3 per million in 1982. Dr. Charles Balch of the American Society of Clinical Oncology says that some pediatricians who see unusual moles in children, "would ordinarily dismiss this as nothing because melanoma is not supposed to happen in this age group... We all should be aware that this can occur and biopsy suspicious or changing moles in children."

Some doctors believe the appearance melanoma in children could be because of the depleting ozone layer or overexposure to the sun at an early age though it was thought it took many years before repeated sun exposure caused damage. Melanoma prevalence has risen in adults, too. It has more than doubled in the past 30 years. The American Cancer Society estimates that this year about 60,000 U.S. adults will be diagnosed with melanoma and that 7,700 will die from it.

Melanoma develops in skin cells called melanocytes, which produce the pigment that colors the skin's surface and protects deeper layers from sun damage. It is much more invasive and likely to spread to other parts of the body than other skin cancers. Research from Italian doctors published in the March edition of Pediatrics found that melanoma lesions in children sometimes look different from those in adults and may be misdiagnosed. In adults, melanoma often looks like a black or very dark brown mole, or one with irregular borders. But half the Italian children studied had lighter-colored lesions, and most had well-defined borders. Also unlike adults, most children with melanoma have no family history of the disease, and they may lack other risk factors including moles present since birth, Balch said.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/conditions/04/28/children.melanoma.ap/index.html