As you have rightly said it is a mole. It looks like a compound naevus. To know exactly what type of mole it is we do a test called a biopsy. Generally when we suspect that a growth might be a cancer we look for the following characters. Size (rapidly increasing in size), site (some areas like face, palms and soles are more prone for cancer), shape (an irregular shaped growth suggests a cancer), surface (an irregular surface or bleeding from the surface suggests a cancer also a change in surface colour), surrounding skin (in cancers the surrounding skin also will have undergone some changes and will not appear normal). There are various other clinical clues that help us to distinguish a benign (harmless) growth from a malignant (cancer) growth. But the only sure way of knowing is by doing a biopsy. If you are worried about it you could get an excision biopsy, which means the full mole will be removed and sent to a lab to check for a cancer. Also cancer that looks like moles (melanoma) is very rare in Indians. Hope this helps you. Warm regards. Dr. Rajdeep Mysore. Chirag Hospital Bangalore