While a melanoma (malignant melanoma – a tumor of melanin-forming cells) is a cancerous spot that can sometimes form underneath the toenail, a hematoma (haematoma, or blood suffusion is a localized bleeding outside of blood vessels) is a collection of blood beneath the nail, like a scab that is visible through the toenail.
Similarity
Both can cause pigment in or beneath the nail, but unlike a subungual hematoma (blood beneath the nail), a melanoma is mostly not painful and is not associated to an injury.
Subungual Hematoma
Subungual hematomas are injuries of the nail bed (when you crush your finger or drop something heavy on it) in which bleeding develops under the nail. It can cause symptoms like throbbing and intense pain under the nail. It happens if your crush your finger or drop a heavy object such as a dumbbell on your toe.
Melanoma
Malignant melanoma (a cancer of skin cells called melanocytes) is a serious form of skin cancer that begins in cells known as melanocytes. The symptoms involve bigger mole diameter, hyperpigmentation and mole color changes. It can occur anywhere in the body.
Difference between Subungual Hematoma and Melanoma
Definition
Subungual Hematoma
Subungual Hematoma are injuries of the nail bed when you crush your finger or drop something heavy on it and in which bleeding develops under the nail
Melanoma
Melanoma is a serious type of skin cancer (skin malignancy) and is also called as malignant melanoma. It happens when there is unrestricted growth of melanocytes (pigment-producing cells located in the basal cell layer)
Causes
Subungual Hematoma
Injury to the blood vessels beneath the nail bed
Melanoma
environmental and genetic factorstanning beds and lamps exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun
Symptoms
Subungual Hematoma
blood beneath the nailtenderness and intense pain in the nailfeeling of pressure under the naildiscoloring of the nails
Possible signs of an infection include:
pus coming out from beneath the nailtemperaturered streaks in the skinthrobbing in the finger or toe and feeling heatextreme swelling and painexcessive redness around the area of injury
Melanoma
redness or a new swelling beyond the border of the molethe growth of a new pigmented or unusual-looking tumor on your skinbleeding from the molepain in the molelump beneath the skinswollen lymph nodes gray skinheadaches
Treatment
Subungual Hematoma
Simple trephination – a surgery in which a small hole is made in a nail allowing the blood to drain and relieve pressure
Melanoma
Surgery, medication, chemotherapy, radiation
Summary
The points of difference between Subungual Hematoma and Melanoma have been summarized as below:
FAQ:
What does melanoma look like under nail?
A melanoma looks like a brown or black streak under a toenail or fingernail. Sometimes it may be mistaken for a bruise. It also appears as a narrow brown to black pigmented band, that can be seen on the length of a single nail plate (melanonychia)
Is it blood under my nail or melanoma?
With a hematoma, accumulation of blood in the nail bed is visible within a few days of a crushing injury (a crush injury occurs when force or pressure is put on a body part). In contrast to melanoma (malignant melanoma), nail discoloration from hematoma will gradually wade off as the nail starts healing. As the nail heals from a subungual hematoma (injuries of the nail bed in which bleeding develops under the nail), a transverse groove may form across its surface.
How do I know if my toenail is black or melanoma?
With melanoma, a trauma blood blister doesn’t move because the discoloration is not actually in the nail, it’s in the skin beneath the nail. The melanoma does not change even when trauma grows out
What does Stage 1 melanoma look like?
Stage I melanoma is no more than 1.0 mm thick (a ‘thin melanoma’) (1.0 mm is the size of a pencil with a thin and sharpened pencil point). The tumor may or may not have ulcerated (broken skin). Stage 1 melanoma is the least grave type of melanoma.
In Stage I melanoma, the malignant (cancer cells) are in both the epidermis and the dermis (first and second layers of the skin).
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