A melanoma is a pigmented tumor of the skin removal of skin cancer inflammation of the nails a tumor of the sweat glands
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Step 1: Melanoma is a type of skin cancer. Show more…
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Patina H.
35-year-old male presents to the office with a series of skin lesions on his arm which recently ulcerated even after continued application of a topical antibiotic cream. He is a forest ranger who has recently been clearing an area of the park for a new animal housing unit and had many lesions from thorny plants covering his arms. A culture of the lesions is taken and grown at room temperature. Which one of the following is the most likely diagnosis? Dermatophytosis Tinea nigra Sporotrichosis Blastomycosis Tinea pityriasis
Adi S.
Malignant melanoma You are learning about tissues now and are about to learn about skin. Malignant melanoma is a type of cancer that can originate in skin. Many cancers are based in epithelial tissue, while others are based in connective tissue. There are fewer cancers of muscle, and nervous tissue cancer tends to be only glial cell in origin. Cancers occur when cells undergo repeated and uncontrollable cell division. Cell division is an important process cells go through, but when the only thing cells do is cell division, all their other functions become irrelevant. Cells that have become cancerous no longer carry out their needed functions. Cancers tend to be named based on their origin. Melanomas originate from a melanocyte that became cancerous and started dividing. Since melanocytes typically produce the pigment protein melanin, skin melanomas are often dark in color. We tend to think of melanocytes as being only in skin. However, melanocytes arise embryonically from the embryonic tissue called the neural crest. The neural crest are cells that grow outwardly from an invagination of the ectoderm (outer embryonic later) called the neural tube, and these cells contribute to many different organs. The neural crest does give rise to nervous tissue, as might be expected from its name. The neural crest derived nervous tissue is the peripheral nervous system (not the central nervous system which is brain and spinal cord). Cells from the neural crest migrate out to many areas of the body, however, and melanocytes come from that tissue. So there are actually melanocytes in many internal locations in the body (even inside the gastrointestinal tract). How can a dark growth on the skin lead to serious complications and even death? Consider a single melanocyte that has become cancerous. It begins to divide and then continues to divide. It goes from being one cell to being a whole pile of cells. That may not seem dangerous. Especially if it is just located in skin. There are a couple of serious problem with cancerous cells, though: 1) they divide so much that they take over the tissue that they are in, spreading out and killing all the neighboring cells that are acting normal; and 2) they can turn metastatic and crawl around into new areas of the body. Let’s consider these two problems in turn.
Celine I.
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