Example of a Medicine Paper on Melanoma

Melanoma is a type cancer that affects the skin. Melanoma starts in the melanocytes in the skin. The other names for cancer include cutaneous melanoma and malignant melanoma. The melanoma cells are responsible for the formations of melanin, and thus the color of melanoma malignant is either black or brown (Mazar et al. 2014). The melanoma cells that do not make melanin are white, pink, or tan in color. The melanomas malignant attack back and chest in men but attack legs in women.

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Causes of Melanoma

The two factors such as exposure to ultraviolet predation and radiation and genetics cause melanoma. The exposure to ultraviolet radiation causes damages to the DNA hence making the body susceptible to Melanoma. The use of tanning devices by people below thirty years exposes one with the risk of getting melanoma. Besides, individuals in airlines are exposed to ultraviolet radiations hence are likely to develop cases of melanoma. People who develop sunburn after long hours of hot sun are likely to develop melanoma. Gene mutation is also a causative agent of Melanoma. Essentially, the mutation causes loss of genes that are responsible for the suppressions of genes. The intensity of the sun and the long hours of sunlight exposure risk an individual to developing different kinds of skin cancers including Melanoma. The age of an individual and the intensity of skin pigmentations, increase the probability of patients to develop melanoma (Ly, 2015).

Family history plays a role in contracting melanoma. It is apparent that family prone to melanoma has problems with gene mutations. An individual with melanoma is at risk of developing other types of cancer. People born with congenital melanocytic nevi are at risk of developing melanoma later in life. The gene mutations in parents in transferred to infants in some sections of chromosomes and thus making the child susceptible melanoma.

The people from Northern Europe are more prone to melanoma. The regions with the settler from Northern Europe have many cases of melanoma. Australia is the leading country with melanoma patients. When the immigrants from North Europe are exposed to intense sunlight, direct contact with strong sun rays, they are at risk of developing melanoma. The immigrant from North Europe is well-adapted direct sunlight insolation and thus long hours of hot sun can cause melanoma (Hua, et al. 20150). Young children from Europe are more susceptible to melanoma than an adult from a similar origin.

Melanoma affects the melanocytes and impedes their functions of manufacturing melanin the body pigmentations protect the body from dangerous ultraviolet rays from the sun. After the destructions of melanocytes cells, it results in the abnormal growth and the cells resist the average deaths. The cancer cells spread rapidly thus causing deaths.

The occurrence of melanoma in the past was minimal. The examination of Peruvian Mummies in 1960s is the first indication of the existence of melanoma. The carbon dating of melanoma in the 1960s showed that the disease was 2400 years since the inception. In 1787, there was an incident of melanoma when John Hunter did the first operation on melanoma patient. A physician from France first described melanoma as a dangerous disease during one of his lecture in 1804. Norris William studied mentioned in his report that melanoma is familial. He also observed the relationship between melanoma and exposure to intense sunlight from some of his patients. Samuel Cooper said that early removal of malignant cells reduces deaths due to the disease (Hua, et al. 20150).

The early stages of melanoma are the uncontrolled growth of melanocytes. When the size of melanocytes is less than 1 mm thick, the stage is called radial growth phase. At radial phase, the cancer cells can be removed through surgery. However, with time the cancer cells spread to various parts of the body through the epidermis and alter the behavior of the cells. In the vertical growth phase, the melanoma cells spread rapidly via the blood and the tumor increases in its thickness. The cancers cells destroy proteins in the skins and cause gene mutation. The destruction of DNA makes the oxygen species less reactive (Hua et al., 2016). The genes of tumors in the skins are the complete destructions of genes that suppress tumors in the skin. The absence of tumor suppressors reduces the rate of mitosis, and thus the growth of cells becomes uncontrollable hence the formation of tumors.

Signs and symptoms of melanoma

There are early warnings of melanoma infections. For examples, the early sign involves the alterations of the appearance of a lump on different parts of the skin. The color and shapes of new lumps on the surface of the skin are early warnings of the onset of the disease. On later dates, the patients bleed, itch and feel irritated because of ulcerations(Ly,2015).

Symptoms of Melanoma

The melanoma patients experience fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, and vomiting. As the disease advances, it transfers to regions such as bones, liver, and abdomen. At the zero stage, there is a high probability of patient survival. As the disease, advance through the stages such invasion melanoma, high-risk stage, regional metastasis, distant metastasis the chances for survival diminishes (Ly,2015).

Diagnosis of the disease

The most popular method of diagnosis of melanoma is visual inspections. The physicians observe the color and shapes of skin pigments. Often the moles with irregular shapes and pigmentations are suspects of the infections. The physician observes the changes in moles variables such as size, color, shape, bleeding and itchy sensation. Doctors subject candidate to dermatoscopy to distinguish the disease from other forms of ailments. Besides, the patients undergo LDH and X-ray test. The different scans such PET, MRI and CT are also important in the process of diagnosis (Ly,2015). Another important test for melanoma suspects is lactate dehydrogenase.

Treatment of melanoma

Melanoma is treatable during the early stages of disease development. The physicians uses do skin biopsy to confirm the stage of the infections. The treatment of the melanoma starts immediately after the diagnosis. One of the strategies for treating melanoma is surgery. The surgery is one way of removing the tumors. Doctors recommend a patient to undergo further surgeries to reduce the reoccurrence of the disease (Ly,2015). Melanoma is also treatable by adjuvant treatment. The patients are given dosages of interferon treatment to improve the prognosis of the patients. The adjuvant treatment has side effects but helps to increase the chances for patients survival rate.

The other method for treating melanoma patients is through immunotherapy and chemotherapy. The most popular chemotherapy includes temozomide, and decarbozine. The immunotherapy approach includes perfusion that most centers apply for the treatment of patients. The other method of treating melanoma patient includes radiation therapy. Radiation therapy is done after a surgery of patient with severe cases of melanoma. The melanoma patients are subject to x-ray beams to kill the cancer cells on the surface of the skin.

Preventions of melanoma

It is possible to minimize the risk of melanoma. Individual must reduce exposures to intensive ultraviolet radiations that kill the melanocytes. Individuals should consider wearing clothes that can shield their bodies from the destructive ultraviolet radiations. Individuals should shield themselves from the light used for tanning. Sunlight is good for the formation of vitamin D, and thus people should consider exposure to sunlight intermittently. Additionally, wearing sunscreen prevent melanomas (Ly,2015).

Prognosis

Different features impede prognosis. Some of the factors that affect prognosis include skin structure, the thickness of the tumor, ulcerations, presence of lymphatic invasions, and location of the lesion. The number of lymph nodes containing is an important factor in prognosis. The process of prognostic for micrometastases is better than that of the macrometastases. In macrometastases where the malignancies are visible, the prognosis is worse. In the melanoma is considered incurable when it is in distant metastasis. During this distant metastasis, the survival rates for patients in fives time is as low as 10% (Miller et al. 2016). The metastatic melanoma stage may not be dangerous when the physicians are aggressive, and the treatments are intensive. The lung and skin metastases have a friendly prognosis.

The early signs for the melanoma include the variations in the color and the shapes of the moles. As the disease, advances through various stages it starts to bleed, ulcerate, and itch. The disease has four stages of development. In the first stage, the chance of the survival of the patients is high. Besides, the patients can be treated with surgery and chemotherapy. However, as the conditions of the patient is worse, it reaches a stage called distant metastasis where the chances of survival for the patients are minimal (Ly,2015). At the third and fourth stage of disease, the patients need active medical treatment to increase their chances of survival. For example, the patient with early signs of the diseases requires major surgery to remove the cancer cells and diminish the chances of recurrence of the disease. Most doctors believe that early stages of diagnosis increase the chance for patients to survive. It necessary that a patient undergoes special treatment as biopsies of lymph node and PET scans to determine the progression of cancer. The survival rates of the patients with melanoma depend on with strengths of the body (Miller et al. 2016).

In 2012, the total numbers of melanoma incidences were 232,000 patients. Among the 232,000 people with melanoma case, 55,000 cases of deaths were reported. The cases of melanoma are high in New Zealand, and Australia has had the highest number of deaths in the last 20 years (Jemal, 2016). The number of melanoma continues to rise in different parts of the globe yet no accurate records are indicating the change in behavior, early diagnosis or environmental behaviors. Australia recorded a very level of death because of melanoma where 9.8 percent of 100, 000 people die because of infections. In 2012, the total number of people diagnosed with the disease was 12000. The percentages of new melanoma patient in 2012 were 58.9 %. The records of people dying because of melanoma in Australia have been raising a rate of 30% per year since 1991. The estimated population of people dying because of melanoma in U.S is approximately 9,000. In 2011, the percentage of the people died because of the disease was 19.7% in 100,000 people (Siegel et al. 2015)

Reference

Mazar, J., Zhao, W., Khalil, A. M., Lee, B., Shelley, J., Govindarajan, S. S., & Finck, B. N. (2014). The functional characterization of long noncoding RNA SPRY4-IT1 in human melanoma cells.

Ly, L. M. T. (2015). An evaluation of the histopathologic features and analysis of CDKN2A promoter methylation of segmental speckled lentiginous naevus; in search for an epigenetic cause of melanoma.

Hua, C., Boussemart, L., Mateus, C., Routier, E., Boutros, C., Cazenave, H., ... & Tomasic, G. (2016). Association of vitiligo with tumor response in patients with metastatic melanoma treated with pembrolizumab. JAMA dermatology, 152(1), 45-51.Miller, K. D., Siegel, R. L., Lin, C. C., Mariotto, A. B., Kramer, J. L., Rowland, J. H., ... & Jemal, A. (2016). Cancer treatment and survivorship statistics, 2016. CA: a cancer journal for clinicians, 66(4), 271-289.Siegel, R. L., Miller, K. D., & Jemal, A. (2015). Cancer statistics, 2015. CA: a cancer journal for clinicians, 65(1), 5-29.