The answer is B, but A was also threatening to change, so those of you who chose A aren’t really wrong. The thing that most people don’t realize about moles (nevi) is that they aren’t ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but always changing. What this means is that ‘A’ may change at some point to be a melanoma. It may even get better to some degree if the patient stays out of the sun for a long time.
We find that moles have a natural pattern of growth and eventually many may even get better and go away as people age. There are others, called seborrheic keratoses, that get worse over time, but these aren’t of concern (although they look quite dangerous to many people).
This melanoma is one that was less than one millimeter in thickness, which is good. That means that this will likely have a good chance of complete cure and no further work (other than the reexcision we did) will be necessary.
Please feel free to send this link to your loved ones as we have heard from several of my readers who sent it on and a loved one realized they had a melanoma because of it! My patients are thrilled that they can help others as well to avoid this potentially life-threatening condition.
Which one is the melanoma, A or B?