Unsuspected melanoma

Last week I saw a patient in the clinic for a skin check who was concerned about an itchy spot on their arm. This spot was a benign seborrhoeic keratosis (aka age/wisdom spot). What they didn't know was that they had a melanoma growing on their back. Thankfully we were able to remove the melanoma before it had a chance to spread beyond the skin. This situation is quite common, where a patient attends the clinic for a skin check concerned about a spot that turns out to be benign but, in fact, has a skin cancer elsewhere. This highlights the importance of having suitably regularly skin checks.