What are the chances of getting melanoma?

It’s not genetically related. Malignant melanoma does affect people wirth fair skin more often though, but that is because they have less melanin in their skin cells to protect the DNA in their cutaneous layers from UV damage. Eitherway, using sunscreen and not over exposing yourself to the sun will dramatically reduce you chances of getting it.

It’s cancer? It’s not a genetically linked trait?

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/health/content/health/guides/melanoma.html

Actually, many cancers ARE genetically related but probably not in the way you would think. Cancer can be caused by a genetic mutation of some sort. It could be a mutation in your tumor suppressor genes, you could inherit an oncogene, or a mutation could develop over time (acquired mutation).

A germline mutation is a mutation that can be passed from parent to offspring and do play a role in some types of cancers.

Melanoma has a autosomal dominant inheritance pattern, which simply means that if you get only 1 copy of that mutated gene you are at a greater risk of developing the disease. That however does not mean that you will. If one of the parents is in fact a carrier of that defective gene they have a 50% chance of passing that defective gene onto their child.

Although you may not get the disease itself from your parents, you can inherit a mutated gene that increases your risk of getting the disease.