NEW YORK – Seemingly normal skin samples may contain cutaneous melanoma-related mutations that may be missed by focusing on risky-looking naevi, or moles, according to a new study focused on ultraviolet light-linked DNA damage patterns.
"It turns out that a multitude of individual cells in so-called normal skin are riddled with mutations associated with melanoma, which are a result of sun exposure," senior and corresponding author Hunter Shain, a dermatology and cancer researcher at the University of California at San Francisco, said in a statement.