{"id":679,"date":"2014-08-08T15:08:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-08T15:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parraskincancer.dev\/?page_id=679"},"modified":"2023-01-06T10:53:08","modified_gmt":"2023-01-06T10:53:08","slug":"melanoma-diagnosis-and-treatment-in-sydney-including-wollongong-parramatta","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/crowndermatology.com.au\/crown\/melanoma-diagnosis-and-treatment-in-sydney-including-wollongong-parramatta\/","title":{"rendered":"Melanoma"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melanoma<\/h1>\n

At QIMR\u00a0 there is a free tool, backed by evidence, with 70% accuracy of predicting that some one might develop melanoma over a 3 years period.\u00a0 Check it out here at:\u00a0\u00a0QIMR Berghofer<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>Melanoma Risk Predictor Calculator:<\/strong><\/p>\n

https:\/\/publications.qimrberghofer.edu.au\/Custom\/QSkinMelanomaRisk)<\/p>\n

<\/strong>The read all about melanoma here: www.melanoma.org.au<\/a><\/p>\n

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How we diagnose melanoma:<\/strong>
\n1: Inspect for ugly duckling
\n2. Dermatoscopic examination of any lesion in question
\n3. Biopsy the lesion concerned.
\nA, Incision if the lesion is very big
\nB. Excision if lesion is small
\nC. Shave or saucerise if lesion is superficial & in thick skinned area. Most doctors in general settings may see a few melanomas during their working life. At our clinics melanomas are commonly diagnosed.\u00a0We see around\u00a0100 +<\/strong>\u00a0melanomas per year. That\u2019s a lot of melanomas. Fortunately, most are easily treated and the majority were treated at the clinic. \u00a0A few patients were referred to the hospital for extra-attention.<\/p>\n

In general dermatologists \u00a0\/ skin cancer doctors\u00a0do not<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0operate on thick melanomas. Thick(~greater than 0.75-1mm thick ) melanomas are for the hospital surgeons.\u00a0We normally refer patients to Wollongong surgical oncologist,\u00a0Sydney melanoma unit<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Westmead cancer care<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Royal prince Alfred hospital\u00a0. These centres are very efficient. If you have a melanoma > 1mm thick. You will be seen very quickly.<\/p>\n

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\"melanoma-0\"<\/a>\u00a0\"melanoma-arm\"<\/a>\u00a0\"melanoma-ear\"<\/a>\u00a0\"melanoma-leg\"<\/a>\u00a0\"superficial-spreading-Melanoma\"<\/a>\u00a0\"melanoma-insitu-4\"<\/a>\u00a0\"melanoma-insitu\"<\/a>\u00a0\"melanoma-0\"<\/a>\u00a0\"foot-mm\"<\/a>\u00a0\"foot-mm-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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melanoma<\/div>\n
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Excision of the melanoma site is easy. It\u2019s the lymph node samplings and follow up care\u00a0that\u00a0really matter.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Melanoma<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u2013 the dreaded skin cancer but, don\u2019t panic! We have diagnosed and treated hundreds of melanomas over the years. Some of our patients have had multiple melanomas removed and are still in excellent health and living very normal lives. In general, we tend to see patients who are well motivated and who perform regular self skin checks, hence,\u00a0 the types of melanoma we see tend to be picked up in the very early stages. Early staged melanomas are easily picked with regular self examination.<\/p>\n

Most melanomas illustrated\u00a0 here are fairly large >5mm and they look very sinister but, all these patients are a still well\u00a0 many years after diagnosis. It is not so much the size of the melanoma but, the\u00a0THICKNESS<\/strong>\u00a0of melanoma that determines your overall longevity and\u00a0survival rate.\u00a0For those unfortunate enough to have \u00a0PINK \u00a0melanomas and\/or\u00a0\u00a0( >0.8-1 mm in depth \/ thickness\u00a0) then we will facilitate speedy referral to a nearest melanoma unit on your behalf. \u00a0Melanoma units are located at RPA hospital, Westmead hospital or in North Sydney ( next to the Sydney Adventist Hospital ).<\/p>\n

In general\u00a0dermatologists \/\u00a0skin cancer doctors\u00a0do not\u00a0operate on thick melanomas. Thick melanomas are for the hospital surgeons.<\/strong>\u00a0We do of course\u00a0do surgery on\u00a0thick melanomas but only if\u00a0 the patient had an informed choice of whether he\/she wanted lymph node biopsy or not. We also remove thick melanomas\u00a0 for palliation or\u00a0 patient requesting conservative treatments then office surgery will be sufficient. We do all these on a shared-cared basis with the hospital.<\/p>\n

And remember: \u00a0Melanomas do not appear over night.\u00a0<\/strong>Generally if a mole has changed shape, size or colour over a 3 month period then you should have that mole examined in detail with dermatoscopy +\/- biopsy ( incision or saucerisation NOT 2 mm punch biopsy ).See below for examples of melanomas looking with the naked eye and through a\u00a0dermatoscope<\/a>.\u00a0Most are very obvious however, some are very normal looking.\u00a0It takes experience to pick out early melanomas.<\/p>\n

Some melanomas are just plain obvious, e.g. superficial spreading and pigmented nodular melanomas whilst some are just IMPOSSIBLE to diagnose by the naked eye e.g.\u00a0pink\u00a0or\u00a0non pigmented\u00a0or metastatic melanomas. The worse offender for delayed diagnoses will be the non-pigmented melanomas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Melanoma At QIMR\u00a0 there is a free tool, backed by evidence, with 70% accuracy of predicting that some one might develop melanoma over a 3 years period.\u00a0 Check it out here at:\u00a0\u00a0QIMR Berghofer\u00a0Melanoma Risk Predictor Calculator: https:\/\/publications.qimrberghofer.edu.au\/Custom\/QSkinMelanomaRisk) The read all about melanoma here: www.melanoma.org.au How we diagnose melanoma: 1: Inspect for ugly duckling 2. Dermatoscopic … Continue reading Melanoma<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-679","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowndermatology.com.au\/crown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowndermatology.com.au\/crown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowndermatology.com.au\/crown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowndermatology.com.au\/crown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowndermatology.com.au\/crown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/crowndermatology.com.au\/crown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6017,"href":"https:\/\/crowndermatology.com.au\/crown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/679\/revisions\/6017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowndermatology.com.au\/crown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}