Mole fear

[Farleigh1]

Hi. I have a dysplastic mole on my face that I picked to the point it was almost gone. It did however grow back shortly after.

Should i be concerned with getting cancer from the above?

[Bearinmind]

Moles needs to be surgically removed to have almost no chance of reoccurring. Moles are like Icebergs, what you see is just an small amount of the deal, deep on the skin there can be a lot more of it and unless you take every cell of it from your skin, it will reappear, and it can reappear uglier than before. That's the nature of moles, it's not cancerous. That's why so many people spend so much money trying to remove them, because it's no easy task. If you just tried to pick it at home, it will almost likely reoccur. They reoccur even with professional products specifically made to kill them. If it really is bothering you so much, you should see a dermatologist to check that for you and tell which is the best sure way to remove it.

[Farleigh1]

I have read that damaging an atypical mole can cause the atypical cells to mutate into cancer. Is this true? The quote was "Trauma to the remaing cells could upset the "balance" and cause them to mutate."

[Dreamweaver]

The dermatologist or (plastic, usually) surgeon who takes it off knows exactly what to do. The pathology report will indicate unequivocally whether it is cancerous (very unlikely) or not, and it will refer specifically to the 'margins' which are the edges of the sample in terms of width, length and (most importantly) depth. It is likely that you will have nothing to worry about it, but heed other posters' advice and see a dermatologist (not a GP) for reassurance. I had quite a large melanoma in situ taken off my back in the UK in early 2005, and I have gone for checkups every six months without fail - more often if I spot something I don't like the look of. I'm currently in Germany, and have had nine of these wretched things (dysplastic moles, not melanomas) surgically removed in the last eight months. None were even vaguely malignant, but it's best not to take a chance. The best to you.

[Bearinmind]

I have read that damaging an atypical mole can cause the atypical cells to mutate into cancer. Is this true? The quote was "Trauma to the remaing cells could upset the "balance" and cause them to mutate."

It can, but it's not a great risk nor it's anything exclusive to moles.

Why?

Because virtually any action which accelerates cell death will "increase" the chances of cancer, not just moles. The more cells you kill, the more cells from that region will reproduce themselves (to compensate for all the cell death). The more cells reproduces themselves, more chances to occur a mutation. More mutations, more chances of cancerous mutations. This is not exclusive to moles, it can happen if you keep unsucessfully killing warts, if you drink too much too hot water/coffee/hot beverages, if you inhale too much smoke all the time, hell, even if you have too much sex as well. Every continuous actions that scrapes/burn the cells from a body tissue can "increase" the risk of cancer on that tissue simply because killing too many cells forces your body to reproduce too many cells on that region. That's why you will see many daft researches on the newspaper saying: "Scientists say that ripping too many farts will increase the risk of color cancer!", not because there is any particular process on farting that increases the chance of colon cancer, but just because they made some statistical analyses, saw increased cell death and ta-da, farting gives you cancer.

Aside from that, Dreamweaver advice is correct, if it's bothering you so much, see a dermatologist, it will ease will mind off.