the american cancer society ’s estimates for melanoma skin cancer in the united states for 2015 are : about 73,870 new cases of melanoma about 9,940 deaths from melanoma skin cancer is the most common of all cancers .
the skin is the largest organ of the body .
overall , the lifetime risk of getting melanoma is about 1 in 40 for whites , 1 in 1,000 for blacks , and 1 in 200 for hispanics .
but the risk goes up with researchers at king 's college london have investigated a new method that could be used by gps to quickly determine the number of moles on the entire body by counting the number found on a smaller ' proxy ' body area , such as an arm .
melanoma accounts for less than 2 % of skin cancers .
the number of new cases of melanoma in the united states has been rising for at least 30 years .
researchers counted the number of moles that study participants had on 17 sites on the skin of their bodies — such as the left leg , the chest and the back — and found that the arms were the site that was the best indicator of the total number of moles on the whole body .
for example , women with at least seven moles on an arm were nine times more likely to have at least 50 moles on their entire body than those who had fewer than seven moles on their right arm .
melanoma , the most deadly type of skin cancer , will account for about 76,380 cases of skin cancer people who have 11 or more moles on one of their arms could have a higher risk of the deadly skin cancer melanoma , according to a new study .