New diagnoses and a history of non-melanoma skin cancer have become increasingly common, and the disease affects more individuals than all other cancers combined, according to new US reports.
The first report followed a study in which doctors developed a mathematical model to estimate the prevalence of non-melanoma skin cancer in 2007.
“This model used age-specific incidence data adjusted to reflect changes in incidence from 1957 to 2006, the age distribution of the population from 1957 to 2006 and the likelihood that an incident tumour was the first ever for that person.
The researchers estimated that approximately 13 million white, non-Hispanic Americans had had at least one non-melanoma skin cancer by 2007. “The prevalence of a history of skin cancer is far higher than that of any other cancer,” the lead researcher concluded.
In the second study, doctors analysed data from US databases and surveys to estimate the incidence and treatment rates of non-melanoma skin cancer in 2006.
The total number of procedures to treat skin cancer in the study population increased 76.9 per cent from an estimated approximately 1.6 million procedures in 1992 to approximately two million procedures in 2006.
Between 2002 and 2006, procedures to treat non-melanoma skin cancer increased 16 per cent and the number of individuals undergoing at least one procedure increased by 14.3 per cent.
Archives of Dermatology
2010;146:279-282, 283-287
About Greg Baxter
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