John McCain's Skin Cancer & the Predictions about his Longevity - If elected, will he be able to complete his 4 year-term?

Last Thursday, a Times report cited John McCainJohn McCain to have a 6 percent risk of dying from skin cancer every year, according to a medical report. The 72-year-old Arizona Senator has a history of Melanoma. McCain began his battle with the deadly skin cancer in the year 2000, around eight years ago when physicians removed a high risk cancer from his upper left arm.

McCain has had four melanomas, including a lesion on his shoulder that was removed in 1993 and has not returned, as well as melanomas on his upper left arm in 2000, and his nose in 2002 that were of the least dangerous kind. According to the reports, the most serious melanoma was the one that was removed from his left temple in 2000. This melanoma measured 2.2 millimeters deep at its thickest point but had not spread to any lymph nodes.

Melanoma is the most sever kind of skin cancer and is documented at the rate of around 60,000 cases a year in the U.S. Each diagnosed melanoma is classified in to one of the four stages of severity based on the scale defined by American Joint Committee on Cancer. McCain's most severe cancer (melanoma on left temple in 2000) was graded a stage 2A. However, the Times report suggests that the medical opinions are inconsistent regarding the severity of the Senator's melanoma.

Early this year, another Times report quoted experts opinion that John McCain has 13.1 years to live. According to the report, the Republican presidential candidate will live to be 85. The experts on ageing further concluded that the Senator should not only be fit to serve two complete four-year-terms, he should also have at least five years left for a comfortable retirement.

The single most important piece of information about the risk to McCain's health from skin cancer that Times report left unexplored was the recurrence rate of melanoma. According to experts, if he has already survived more than eight years without a recurrence, it means that his chances of suffering a recurrence now are very low.

Dr. Darrell Rigel, melanoma expert and clinical professor of dermatology at New York University Medical Centre told Discover magazine in an interview, "If you've had melanoma, 99 percent of the time if you're going to have a recurrence it will be within 10 years. If a patient is 8.5 years out, (the likelihood) of recurrence goes on a curve: It's 95 percent at five years after treatment, 99 percent at 10 years. So (McCain, at 8 years) is at somewhere around a 1.5 percent chance of recurrence, though it's probably closer to one percent."

Since May this year, when McCain released around 1200 pages of medical reports to a restricted group of journalists, who were given limited access, a heated debate was initiated regarding the health of the 72-year-old presidential candidate. Critics are still constantly pinching the same question again and again; Will John McCain live long enough to complete his term if he is elected as the President of the United States? Well, as for the analysis of his skin cancer, it can be safely said that John McCain has a good probability of completing his full term in case he gets elected. Although one cannot predict an accurate calculation of an individual's life span but come on people, save the old man from the skin cancer controversy, shall we!?