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