Is melanoma hereditary?

Melanoma is one of the four types of malignant skin tumors, i.e. skin cancer. 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. These patients were more likely to have a family history of the disease or to have dysplastic moles. Dysplastic skin moles can develop into precancerous changes. The researchers noted that dysplastic skin moles occur in 5 to 10 percent of the general population. Of the patients with multiple melanomas, 21 percent had a family history of melanoma. Only 12 percent of the patients with a single melanoma had a family history of melanoma. And 39 percent of the patients with multiple melanomas had a dysplastic skin mole in the past, while only 18 percent of the patients with a single melanoma had a dysplastic skin mole.

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