Twitch streamer Ninja reveals skin cancer diagnosis - symptoms and treatment explained

American video game streamer Tyler "Ninja" Blevins has been diagnosed with skin cancer.

The 32-year-old Twitch star, who has more than 19m followers on the streaming platform, revealed on social media that he has been diagnosed with melanoma. His diagnosis came after a mole that was removed from his foot was found to be cancerous.

A former Halo professional, Blevins previously played for teams like Final Boss, Str8 Rippin and Cloud9, before moving into the world of streaming. He is now best known for streaming Fortnite, a battle royale video game.

Posting on X, Blevins said: "A few weeks ago I went in to a dermatologist for an annual skin/mole check that Jess proactively scheduled for me. There was a mole on the bottom of my foot that they wanted to remove just to be careful.

"It came back as melanoma, but they are optimistic that we caught it in the early stages. I had another dark spot appear near it, so today they biopsied that and removed a larger area around the melanoma with the hopes that under the microscope they will see clear non-melanoma edges and we will know we got it.

"I’m grateful to have hope in finding this early, but please take this as a PSA to get skin checkups."

According to the NHS, melanoma is a type of skin cancer that can spread to other areas of the body. It is typically caused by ultraviolet light exposure, but age, pale skin, a large number of moles and a family history of cancer can also increase its likelihood.

Surgery is the main treatment for melanoma, especially if it's found early. Patients may also need surgery if the melanoma has spread to other areas of their body or if it has come back again after being removed. For larger cases, radiotherapy could be used to reduce the size of a melanoma, as well as control and relieve symptoms.