Melanoma

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Examine the back, front, and sides of your legs. Also look between your buttocks and around your genital area.
5. Sit and closely examine your feet, including the toenails, the soles, and the spaces between the toes.
By checking your skin regularly, you will become familiar with what is normal for you. It may be helpful to record the dates of your skin exams and to write notes about the way your skin looks. If you find anything unusual, see your doctor right away.

Staging
If the diagnosis is melanoma, the doctor needs to learn the extent, or stage, of the disease before planning treatment. Staging is a careful attempt to learn how thick the tumor is, how deeply the melanoma has invaded the skin, and whether melanoma cells have spread to nearby lymph nodes or other parts of the body. The doctor may remove nearby lymph nodes to check for cancer cells. (Such surgery may be considered part of the treatment because removing cancerous lymph nodes may help control the disease.) The doctor also does a careful physical exam and, if the tumor is thick, may order chest x-rays, blood tests, and scans of the liver, bones, and brain.
Stages of Melanoma
The following stages are used for melanoma:
· Stage 0: In stage 0, the melanoma cells are found only in the outer layer of skin cells and have not invaded deeper tissues.
· Stage I: Melanoma in stage I is thin:
o The tumor is no more than 1 millimeter (1/25 inch) thick. The outer layer (epidermis) of skin may appe...