Is malignant melanoma hereditary?

Is malignant melanoma hereditary? Melanoma is one of the four types of malignant skin tumors, or skin cancers. Patients with melanoma are very worried that their condition will be passed on to the next generation and have a bad impact on their children. Studies have found that for every patient with skin melanoma, there are often such cases one after another, especially when encountering some patients with a family history of skin melanoma. So is melanoma hereditary?

Nine percent of the patients, or 385 people, had multiple melanomas. They were more likely to have a family history of the disease or to have dysplastic moles, which can develop into precancerous changes. The researchers note that dysplastic moles occur in 5 to 10 percent of the general population.

Twenty percent of patients with multiple melanomas had a family history of melanoma, compared with only 12 percent of patients with a single melanoma. Thirty-nine percent of patients with multiple melanomas had a history of dysplastic skin moles, compared with only 18 percent of patients with a single melanoma.

About 11% of patients with single melanoma will develop a second melanoma within 5 years of onset. Especially for those patients with single melanoma who have a family history of melanoma, the chance of developing a second melanoma is very high, about 20%.