Hi folks. A month or so ago I had a mole removed from my lower back. I am a 54 year old male.
I had a meeting with my dermatologist to discuss the results and it has been confirmed the mole has been graded as a stage IV melanoma. As you can appreciate this has been a shock and finding reliable information has been challenging.
My biggest issue is how the melanoma has been staged. the McMIllan pamphlet that was provided at the meeting confirms stage IV as "the melanoma has spread to other areas of the body, such as other areas of the skin, the lungs, liver, bones or brain"
The question I have is how such a grading can be determined without any other testing having taken place. I have a consultation shortly for the wide area excision and SLNB but I have not so far had any other tests. the mole was measured to 7.6mm so it was very deep.
The IV staging suggests to me its certain spread has occurred yet I cant see how they can determine this without the tests.
Are the medical team basing their staging on an assumption or strong likelihood that spread will have occurred, or the fact that cells were also found in the healthly skin removed with the mole?
I have tried to reach out to my dermotology cancer nurse to discuss, but she has not yet replied to my voicemails.
Does anyone have any ideas? For the record i an a healthy male with no signs of medical issues and the physical checks of my lymph nodes revealed no signs of swelling.