Melanoma survivors at increased risk for second melanoma

Survivors of one melanoma appear approximately nine times as likely as the general population to develop a second melanoma, a new American study has found.
Doctors based at the National Cancer Institute used nine cancer registries to identify 89,515 patients who survived at least two months after an initial melanoma diagnosis between 1973 and 2006.

Of these, 10,857 patients, or 12.1 per cent, developed one or more additional primary cancers, such that their overall risk of another cancer increased by 28 per cent. One-fourth of these subsequent cancers were primary melanomas. Women with head and neck melanoma and patients younger than 30 had additionally increased risks of a subsequent melanoma.
“The risk remains elevated more than 20 years after the initial melanoma diagnosis,” the doctors reported. “This increased risk may be owing to behavioural factors, genetic susceptibility or medical surveillance.”
In light of their findings, the doctors concluded that survivors of melanoma ‘should remain under surveillance not only for recurrence, but also for future primary melanomas and other cancers’.
Archives of Dermatology
2010;146:265-272