Hi,

Is the cancer history in your family melanoma of the nail or the skin? I ask because nail melanoma is mainly due to genetics rather than UV damage whilst the reverse applies to superficial spreading (skin) melanoma. Also, the close relationship is important when looking at family history - they mainly look at parent, child, sibling, aunt, uncle, grandparent. If the relationship is further away it then depends how many family members have been diagnosed with melanoma (other skin cancer aren't taken into account as more people get diagnosed with bcc and scc). 

Yes, 5% of melanoma diagnoses are subungual, however this is broken down by ethnicity - approx 1 to 2% are in white, caucasian while the higher proportion are in black, asian and oriental people so the odds come down to approx 2% depending on your ethnicity - and this is is not 2% of the population but 2% of annual Melanoma diagnoses which equate to about 350 people a year in the UK. 

So taking all this together, I hope this eases your worries a little. As Louise advises, there are several threads on the forum from those going through the same as yourself. Only a few of those with benign results have posted the outcome so the posts appear to have a lot of SM cases but it's not a true reflection of the benign v melanoma results. Good luck and please let us know how you get on.

Angie (Stage 3 melanoma patient)