A study conducted by a team of researchers has cleared two very popular misconceptions associated with skin cancer. One is that skin cancer happens only to people with several moles and second, that having unusual moles. It is usually believed that a person with even-toned skin is not susceptible to skin cancer.

These notions have been proved wrong by the study which revealed that the most devastating type of skin cancer – melanoma - happens to those with not many moles.

“Loads of people have been led to believe that melanoma is primarily a disease of very mole-y people or people with lots of unusual moles. I think that’s the main finding here: that that does not appear to be the case,” said the lead investigator of the study, Alan Charles Geller of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

The research involved 566 patients, who had been recently diagnosed with melanoma in California and Michigan.

Doctors counted the number of moles for each patient, particularly making a record of the unusual moles, which are characterized by asymmetry, irregular borders, multiple colors and size more than an eraser on a pencil. Result of the research revealed that 60% of the examined melanoma patients had either no moles or a maximum of 20 moles, which is a considerably small number.

Furthermore, it was found that the pattern further strengthened with the age, since among the patients, who were 60 years or more, 20 or more moles were present only in 19% of them. In addition, it was seen that 73% of the participants did not possess any unusual moles.

However, the study does not discard the presence of moles as a strong risk factor for melanoma. The research simply gives a clear message that the absence of moles does not imply that one should refrain from getting tests done for skin cancer diagnosis.