Melanoma Its Causes and Treatments Term Paper

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Melanoma. Who is at risk, and how can this deadly cancer be prevented?

1. Abstract

Melanoma cancer has been identified and rapidly increasing over the years as the deadliest skin cancer amongst young adults with women being at a higher risk than men. The purpose of this research is to attain knowledge on the risk involving this cancer, look into preventative ways to minimize the exposure to this type of cancer, and how to live a healthy life post-cancer. Melanoma is a skin cancer-affecting people that lack a pigment in their body called melanin. Furthermore, overexposure to ultraviolet sunlight with the use of tanning booth at a young age has been linked with individuals obtaining melanoma. This cancer can be deadly, and depending on the type of insurance it can be costly to the individual. The cost can vary depending on the severity of melanoma, which is why prognosis plays a big part in detecting it (Guy, 2012). Peer-reviewed articles were used to identify the risk and prevention methods of melanoma. In conclusion, more research needs to be done to diagnose the cause of melanoma cancer accurately, and find ways to prevent it. Although women are at higher risk for melanoma, studies have discovered that women depict a higher engagement in taking proactive measures to battle the cancer and ultimately remaining cancer free with less probabilities of reappearing.

2. Review and Analysis

A. Introduction:

The disorder has been known since antiquity, and Hippocrates first coined a term to describe it from the Greek melas meaning dark and oma meaning tumor in the 5th century BCE (Smith, 2017). Although the first successful excision of a melanoma tumor was performed in 1787, it was not until 1804 that melanoma was identified as a separate disease and the term melanoma was first applied to the condition in 1838 by the Scottish pathologist Sir Robert Carswell (Smith, 2017). Despite these minor advances in identification, prior to the latter half of the 20th century, most of the studies on melanoma were descriptive in nature and did not provide any indication of the disease’s underlying etiology or mechanistic basis (Rebecca, Sondak & Smalley, 2012).

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In recent years, less invasive surgical procedures have been developed to treat melanoma and far more has been learned about its causes (Rebecca et al., 2012), including the concentrated ultraviolet lights in popular tanning booths (Gershenwald, Halpern & Sondak, 2016; Konkolova, Provaznikova, Jirakova & Hercogova, 2014). Based on this track record of consistently improving success in diagnosing and treating the disease, Rebecca and his associates (2012) conclude that, “We are confident that as we move forward, our rapidly evolving knowledge will allow us to bring melanoma to level of a chronic, manageable disease and not the intractable ‘black cancer’ of old that struck fear into the hearts of those who observed it” (p. 122). Notwithstanding this impressive progress, however, tens of thousands of Americans still develop melanoma each year as discussed further below.

B. Statistics/Epidemiology:

In 2014, about 1.2 million Americans were living with melanoma of the skin in the United States (Melanoma statistics, 2018). Approximately 87,110 new cases of melanoma are diagnosed each year in the United States representing about 5.2% of all new cancer cases (Melanoma statistics, 2018). About 9,370 people die each year as a result of melanoma, representing around 1.6% of all cancer deaths and a rate of about 22.3 new cases and deaths per 100,000 men and women per year due to the disease (Melanoma statistics, 2018). Moreover, despite improvements in early diagnosis and the development of more efficacious interventions, there has been a slow but insidiously steady increase in the prevalence of melanoma over the past 25 years in the United States as shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1. Number of new cases of diagnosed melanoma in the U.S.: 1992 – 2014

Source: National Cancer Institute (2018) at https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/melan.html

The lifetime risk rate for developing melanoma is approximately the same for both men and women, and about 2.2% of each sex will be diagnosed with melanoma of the skin during their lives (Melanoma statistics, 2018). Likewise, the 5-year….....

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