Teddi Mellencamp, Melanoma, and Why Skin Checks Matter

The three-month skin check

Teddi Mellencamp, a former cast member of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, has posted about her melanoma on Instagram since 2022. NBC News reported her announcement that year that a dermatologist found stage 2 melanoma at a follow-up appointment. She wrote that she had nearly skipped the visit.

"Moral of this story: if a doctor says, come in every 3 months please go in every 3 months," she wrote. She also said she had grown up putting baby oil and iodine on her skin to tan, and had not had her moles checked until she was 40.

In 2025 she shared more. NBC News reported her posts about weeks of severe headaches. They led to a hospital stay, and then brain surgery. Later scans showed tumors in her brain and lungs. She said these were metastases of her melanoma. She also said doctors were hopeful that immunotherapy would treat them.

Everything above comes from what she chose to make public. This page stops there and turns to the disease itself.

What melanoma is

Melanoma starts in melanocytes, the cells that make skin pigment. NCI notes that melanoma is much less common than other skin cancers. It is also far more likely to grow into nearby tissue and spread. Most deaths from skin cancer are caused by melanoma.

The main driver is ultraviolet light. It comes from the sun, and from sunlamps and tanning beds. The damage adds up over a lifetime. That is why habits from the teen years still matter decades later.

Reading your own skin

NCI publishes the ABCDE rule for early melanoma:

• Asymmetry. One half does not match the other.
• Border. The edges are ragged, notched, or blurred.
• Color. Shades of black, brown, and tan are uneven. White, gray, red, pink, or blue may show up too.
• Diameter. The size changes, usually getting bigger. Most melanomas are wider than 6 millimeters. That is about a pencil eraser.
• Evolving. The spot keeps changing.

NCI adds that the first sign is often a change in an existing mole. A new spot that looks unlike your others counts too. A dysplastic nevus is an unusual mole. NCI lists changes in one that you should report. The color changes. It gets bigger or smaller. Its shape, texture, or height changes. The skin on top turns dry or scaly. It feels hard or lumpy. It itches, bleeds, or oozes. Our guide to melanoma symptoms shows what these look like in practice.

What a stage number is measuring

Stage is not a guess about the future. For melanoma it is a description of extent. NCI says the stage rests on three things. One is how thick the tumor is, measured from the skin surface to its deepest point. Another is whether it has broken through the skin. The third is whether cancer sits in lymph nodes or other organs.

Stages run from 0 to IV. Stage 0 is confined to the top layer. Stage IV means the melanoma has reached distant organs. To check the lymph nodes, surgeons often do a sentinel lymph node biopsy. A dye or tracer goes in near the tumor. The first node it drains to is removed and checked. Our page on melanoma stages breaks the groups down further.

How it is treated

Early melanoma is removed by surgery, and for many people that is the whole treatment.

For advanced disease, NCI lists immunotherapy drugs used in melanoma, including nivolumab, pembrolizumab, and the nivolumab and relatlimab combination. Immunotherapy helps the immune system attack cancer cells. NCI also lists targeted therapy, which is aimed at specific gene changes. Some melanomas carry a change in a gene called BRAF. Drugs such as dabrafenib are built for that change. A biomarker test on the tumor tissue guides the choice. Our overview of immunotherapy explains how these drugs differ from chemotherapy.

What the numbers show about the group

SEER data from the National Cancer Institute puts five-year relative survival for melanoma of the skin at 94.7 percent overall, for people diagnosed from 2016 to 2022. The figure shifts with how far it had spread. It is 100 percent for local disease. It is 76.0 percent once nearby lymph nodes are involved. It is 34.0 percent for distant spread.

About 77 percent of melanomas are found while still local. These are averages across thousands of people. They do not predict any one person's course. They also lag behind newer drugs.

When to book the appointment

Make an appointment if a mole changes shape, color, size, or feel, or if a new spot appears that does not match the rest. Go sooner if a spot bleeds, oozes, itches persistently, or becomes hard or lumpy.

Two groups should ask for a set schedule instead of waiting for a change. The first is people with more than five dysplastic nevi. NCI estimates their melanoma risk at about ten times that of someone with none. The second is anyone with a personal or family history of melanoma. Monthly self-checks in a mirror catch most changes. Include the scalp and the backs of the legs.

What to keep in perspective

• One person's course says nothing about anyone else's. Melanoma ranges from a spot removed in a single visit to widespread disease.
• Statements made in 2022 and 2025 describe those moments only. We do not report on anyone's current condition.
• Sunscreen, shade, and clothing lower risk. They do not remove it, and skin checks still matter.
• Melanoma also occurs on skin that rarely sees sun, and in people of every skin tone.

Sources

• NBC News: Teddi Mellencamp announces stage 2 melanoma diagnosis
• NBC News: scans reveal multiple brain and lung tumors after her surgery
• NCI: Common Moles, Dysplastic Nevi, and Risk of Melanoma
• NCI: Melanoma Treatment (PDQ) — Patient Version
• SEER Cancer Stat Facts: Melanoma of the Skin

How this page was made

An AI-assisted editorial system helped prepare this page. This article has not been reviewed by a healthcare professional unless a named reviewer is specifically shown. Cancer Explained is published by the National Cancer Information Foundation as a nonprofit-oriented public-interest education project. It is not a diagnostic service, does not recommend treatments, and is not for emergencies.

Found an error, a broken source link, outdated information, or wording that feels insensitive? Report it here — we log and act on material corrections.