August 30, 2015 • Dr. Frank Bures
http://www.winonadailynews.com/lifestyles/frank-bures-healthful-hint-melanoma-in-the-news-after-carter/article_1add994f-1b15-5d7f-a491-5f713d36ccc8.html
The word melanoma comes from the prefix mel-, for brown, and suffix –oma, for a solid lump of something. Literally translated, it means a lump of brown stuff (wait, think on a higher plane, not about piles of political speeches).
In a basic medical sense it means a growth of brown cells, but it’s now used to mean cancer of pigment cells, or melanocytes (mel-ANN-oh-sites). The term malignant melanoma is more emphatic than the noun alone, but it does not change its meaning one whit. It adds an important redundancy to its reputation as a bad biological dude.
Melanoma has once again entered the public conversation due to former President Jimmy Carter’s announcement that it was found in his liver mass biopsy and then in four spots in his brain.
We have been trained to view melanomas as skin cancers of melanocytes only. These live in epidermis, hair follicles and sweat glands. Common moles are growths of melanocytes. However, the biology and embryo formation patterns that give rise to melanocytes gives us insights about their existence in other organs as well.
In Carter’s case, the tissue of origin of his melanoma isn’t clear. A reference from the Melanoma Education Foundation quotes place of origin for melanoma being 90 percent skin, 5 percent unknown, meaning never found, 2 to 3 percent eyes, 2 percent mucous membranes, such as oral or vaginal, and internal remote site 0.2 percent. These are estimates, and other sources’ percentages may vary a bit.
We develop miraculously from this fertilized egg with one set of genes (original fashion designer?) into billions of remarkably different cells of all kinds and types for specialization. We are finding out that almost each and every cell, wherever it lives and whatever job it has been assigned, is in truth a potential stem cell with all the inoperative genes “locked.”
As an embryo forms, along its back or dorsum develops what is called neural tube, growing southerly. The upper cells begin to specialize into more nerve, or neural, cells and migrate to all body areas as they become specific body parts. Melanocytes derive from the lower portion. They then migrate to several areas, but primarily into skin and follicles.
So melanocytes exist in many body parts, even heart tissue or occasionally bronchial air tubes. Any cell has the capability to lose its specialized function, like storing fat (wouldn’t that be nice?), and under the right genetic conditions undergo genetic mutations. This process is only being understood in its primitive phases. Some cells lose all capacity to do anything but reproduce, spread, and destroy normal tissues. This is cancer.
Some of the genetic mutations of skin melanoma are agreed upon, but are not common to all melanomas. Very different mutations from the skin ones have been identified in mucous membrane melanomas. It is likely there are different ones from other places (reported in some obscure journal).
We have been trained to feel ultraviolet light is necessary to turn melanocytes into melanoma. In reality it is a partial or co-carcinogen. But mouths or vaginas or internal organs are places where the sun don’t shine, right? One lengthy reference about the pathology of melanomas said it is likely rare melanomas have originated in about every tissue in us.
What we lack desperately is a method of testing living cells in a living organism to learn the dissimilar activities, functions, and fate of cell types we have “lumped” together with the same name. All melanomas and all cancers are not created equal. We know some are more vicious or aggressive than others, but are still called the same kind.
Carter’s tumor locations are not different cancers but stem from the same primary source, if it is ever found. He may belong to the 5 percent category of unknowns. The point here is to understand that melanomas are not simply sizzling sunburns creating cancer. Knowledge is very incomplete for all melanomas. We could use a lot more. We still seem to be in the dark about things involving “melano-whatever.”
Our prayers are with Carter and everyone else in the same situation.
Frank Bures is a semi-retired dermatologist in Winona.
Copyright 2015 Winona Daily News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.winonadailynews.com/lifestyles/frank-bures-healthful-hint-melanoma-in-the-news-after-carter/article_1add994f-1b15-5d7f-a491-5f713d36ccc8.html
The word melanoma comes from the prefix mel-, for brown, and suffix –oma, for a solid lump of something. Literally translated, it means a lump of brown stuff (wait, think on a higher plane, not about piles of political speeches).
In a basic medical sense it means a growth of brown cells, but it’s now used to mean cancer of pigment cells, or melanocytes (mel-ANN-oh-sites). The term malignant melanoma is more emphatic than the noun alone, but it does not change its meaning one whit. It adds an important redundancy to its reputation as a bad biological dude.
Melanoma has once again entered the public conversation due to former President Jimmy Carter’s announcement that it was found in his liver mass biopsy and then in four spots in his brain.
We have been trained to view melanomas as skin cancers of melanocytes only. These live in epidermis, hair follicles and sweat glands. Common moles are growths of melanocytes. However, the biology and embryo formation patterns that give rise to melanocytes gives us insights about their existence in other organs as well.
In Carter’s case, the tissue of origin of his melanoma isn’t clear. A reference from the Melanoma Education Foundation quotes place of origin for melanoma being 90 percent skin, 5 percent unknown, meaning never found, 2 to 3 percent eyes, 2 percent mucous membranes, such as oral or vaginal, and internal remote site 0.2 percent. These are estimates, and other sources’ percentages may vary a bit.
We develop miraculously from this fertilized egg with one set of genes (original fashion designer?) into billions of remarkably different cells of all kinds and types for specialization. We are finding out that almost each and every cell, wherever it lives and whatever job it has been assigned, is in truth a potential stem cell with all the inoperative genes “locked.”
As an embryo forms, along its back or dorsum develops what is called neural tube, growing southerly. The upper cells begin to specialize into more nerve, or neural, cells and migrate to all body areas as they become specific body parts. Melanocytes derive from the lower portion. They then migrate to several areas, but primarily into skin and follicles.
So melanocytes exist in many body parts, even heart tissue or occasionally bronchial air tubes. Any cell has the capability to lose its specialized function, like storing fat (wouldn’t that be nice?), and under the right genetic conditions undergo genetic mutations. This process is only being understood in its primitive phases. Some cells lose all capacity to do anything but reproduce, spread, and destroy normal tissues. This is cancer.
Some of the genetic mutations of skin melanoma are agreed upon, but are not common to all melanomas. Very different mutations from the skin ones have been identified in mucous membrane melanomas. It is likely there are different ones from other places (reported in some obscure journal).
We have been trained to feel ultraviolet light is necessary to turn melanocytes into melanoma. In reality it is a partial or co-carcinogen. But mouths or vaginas or internal organs are places where the sun don’t shine, right? One lengthy reference about the pathology of melanomas said it is likely rare melanomas have originated in about every tissue in us.
What we lack desperately is a method of testing living cells in a living organism to learn the dissimilar activities, functions, and fate of cell types we have “lumped” together with the same name. All melanomas and all cancers are not created equal. We know some are more vicious or aggressive than others, but are still called the same kind.
Carter’s tumor locations are not different cancers but stem from the same primary source, if it is ever found. He may belong to the 5 percent category of unknowns. The point here is to understand that melanomas are not simply sizzling sunburns creating cancer. Knowledge is very incomplete for all melanomas. We could use a lot more. We still seem to be in the dark about things involving “melano-whatever.”
Our prayers are with Carter and everyone else in the same situation.
Frank Bures is a semi-retired dermatologist in Winona.
Copyright 2015 Winona Daily News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.