Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Definition
By Mayo Clinic staffMerkel cell carcinoma is a rare type of skin cancer that usually appears as a flesh-colored or bluish-red nodule, often on your face, head or neck. Like other types of skin cancers, the incidence of Merkel cell carcinoma is increasing worldwide.
Merkel cell carcinoma, also called neuroendocrine carcinoma of the skin, most often develops in older people. Long-term sun exposure or having a weak immune system may increase your risk of developing Merkel cell carcinoma.
Merkel cell carcinoma tends to grow fast and to spread quickly (metastasize) to other parts of your body, so it's critical to catch and treat it early. Your treatment plan will depend on whether the cancer has spread beyond your skin by the time it's diagnosed.
