Five stages of melanoma

Generally caused by exposure to too much UV light, melanoma can spread rapidly, changing a prognosis from good to bad if it isn’t spotted early and treated appropriately. This risk of spread is what makes melanoma such a serious and dangerous type of skin cancer.

After diagnosis, you’ll go through staging to identify if your melanoma has spread and to what extent. It is during this process that your doctor will determine your prognosis. In this blog post, we take a look at the five stages of melanoma and what they could mean for those affected.

Stage 0

This is the earliest and least serious stage. Patients at stage 0 will have a melanoma that’s confined to the outermost skin layer – known as the ‘epidermis’ – with no sign of spread outside of this. As a result, stage 0 melanoma, or melanoma in situ, is very treatable and has a great prognosis.

Stage 1

In patients diagnosed with stage 1 melanoma, the lesion or tumour will be no more than 2mm thick. This thickness is further defined as stage 1a or stage 1b, with staging also differing depending on whether it is ulcerated or not.

As with stage 0, stage 1 melanomas have not yet spread to the lymph nodes or other parts of the body.

Stage 2

Stage 2 tumours are defined as between 1mm and over 4mm thick, but may be thicker and either ulcerated or non-ulcerated. Again, stage 2 melanomas are categorised further as 2a, 2b or 2c depending on their size.

Stage 2 melanomas do not present signs of spread to nearby lymph nodes or other, more distant parts of the body.

Stage 3

Stage 3 melanomas are no longer defined by their thickness or the level of ulceration, but instead by their spread. At this stage, cancer cells have spread to nearby lymph nodes and may have even made their way into surrounding lymphatic channels. This is however as far as the spread goes at this stage, having not yet reached more distant parts of the body.

Stage 4

Stage 4 melanomas can be any size, and can also be either ulcerated or non-ulcerated. At this stage, the cancer has spread to other parts of the body, including distant areas of the skin and lymph nodes, lungs, other organs (such as the brain and liver) and the wider nervous system. Stage 4 melanoma is also referred to as metastatic melanoma.

For further guidance and support with melanoma, please contact our team today.