Cutaneous melanoma is a cancer whose interest is steadily on the rise, as it has many mutually exclusive features: on the one hand, it is available for the visual examination and has a clinical description, known at the turn of the 5th century BC, on the other hand, its diagnostics is far from ideal and has complications at the early stage. The part of new-onset cutaneous melanoma at the stage of III—IV was 17.7% in 2019 in Russia. The attempts of cutaneous melanoma diagnostics have been made since the medicine’s development, but the success of early diagnostics and the understanding of this disease’s nature to heal have not been achieved yet. Historical aspects of notion’s development about «cutaneous melanoma» diagnosis, improvement of differential diagnostic methods with other cutaneous neoplasms both in the world and in the Russian Federation were traced. Among the diagnostic methods, following groups can be distinguished: organizational — large-scale campaigns; progression of technologies and equipment; methods of image analysis; development of legislative bases, standardization of doctor’s decision making built on evidence-based medicine. Data collection and analysis was done on all accessible sources, including websites www.pubmed.com, www.elibrary.ru. Early diagnosis of cutaneous melanoma requires a comprehensive approach involving specialists and various technical solutions built on evidence-based medicine. That attitude will allow to identify more «pre-invasive» cases of cutaneous melanoma.