Prevention and Early Detection Strategies for Melanoma and Skin Cancer

Skin cancer represents an increasingly urgent worldwide public health problem.1Estimates project almost a million (or more) new cases each year in the United States; this number is roughly equal to that of all other cancers combined.2The incidence of cutaneous melanoma, which is mounting faster than that of any other cancer in white persons, nearly doubled from 1973 to 1990; in addition, the rise in melanoma mortality rates in white persons ranks second only to lung cancer.3While the overall 5-year melanoma survival rates in the United States rose from 49% (in the early 1950s) to 82% (in the early 1990s), death rates more than doubled during the same time; these rates were driven up by the rising incidence.1,4This year in the United States, melanoma will strike 34 000 persons and kill 7200—part of an estimated 90 000 cases diagnosed worldwide.5,6