Hi,

You can't really read anything into whether it's good or bad news by the waiting time I'm afraid. Every hospital seems to be working differently at the moment. On balance, I think (and it's only my assumption) that your mole may have caused some concern (ie. pre-cancerous or melanoma in situ) and they want to just check you over to ensure no other moles are a concern. Under normal circumstances, precancerous (atypical/dysplastic moles) and melanoma in situ (Stage 0) have no further follow up after removal as they won't cause any further problem but some consultants like to give this diagnosis in person. Hopefully, if it was any other type of melanoma diagnosis (ie. Stage 1 or 2) they would call you back within a few weeks not a few months. The only other reason I can think of is that they haven't been able to make a definitive diagnosis from the tissue they biopsied and it may have been sent to another hospital for a second opinion (which happens in some cases). This adds time onto the results being given to the patient so the consultant may not want you to think 'I haven't heard anything 2 months later so it must be fine' only to get an appointment a few weeks later! It may be their way of saying the result won't be known for a while longer and they've given themselves time for it to come back.

I would keep trying to get through to them & hopefully they will give you an indication as to why you are being called back & why it's so far in the future. There is no point thinking about the private route as you don't yet have a diagnosis for them to work with, so speaking to the hospital involved is the only way to know what's happening I'm afraid.

Good luck and I hope it's good news and nothing to worry about. Please let us know how you get on,

Angie (Stage 3 melanoma patient since 2009)

Hi Angie 

Thanks so much for your reply. I tried numerous times to contact the Dermatology Dept and my GP for the last week and no one could tell me anything, and have been obsessively checking the post for with no letter either.

Today is 6 weeks since my biopsy and I rang the GP this afternoon to see if there was any update, and they told me that a message had just appeared on their system which they read to me over the phone.

Basically, the mole has come back as atypical, dysplastic nevus (which I understand means abnormal cells in the mole) which they said is *not* cancerous - great news! However, they said that they didn't remove all of the mole in the first biopsy so I need to go back to have another procedure, which I'm assuming is the 3 month appointment I've been given, as they said it wasn't urgent.

This is a relief for me but I'm very confused as to how they didn't remove the whole mole first time round, I was told they would have a few mms margin around it to make sure, and I even saw the mole in the specimen pot afterwards.

So, on the whole it's good news that I don't have cancer but bad news that I have to go in for another procedure which it seems could/should have been sorted first time round. And means more time off work and more days without showering. Ah well! 

Hi pamdove,

Please don't read too much into why they are removing the extra margin. When they remove a mole they try to assess it's depth so that they can remove the exact amount of extra margin around it. However, histology sometimes find that the depth was bigger than expected and that the margin taken wasn't quite the diameter it should have been. By taking a further margin they are just ensuring that they have definitely mopped up any stray cell from the mole that may be hanging around. 

It's great that it's dysplastic but they treat these, for surgical purposes, as if it is cancerous because if any is left behind, a dysplastic mole has the ability to turn cancerous in the future. Just one cell left behind could cause you a problem in the future. So though it's a pain having to have further surgery, it really is important. Look at it as 'insurance' for the future. Good luck and I hope you heal quickly and can put it all behind you,

Angie (Stage 3 melanoma patient since 2009)