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Middle-aged women experienced significantly increased melanoma rates over 4 decades
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Cutaneous melanoma rates grew significantly in middle-aged adults during 40 years, particularly among women, according to recent study results.
“Melanoma is not only on the rise as we have known, but it is rising at an astronomical rate especially in middle-aged women,” Jerry D. Brewer, MD, dermatologist, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., told Healio.com.
Jerry D. Brewer
Brewer and colleagues used the Rochester Epidemiology Project to identify 383 patients aged 40 to 60 years (mean age, 49.6 years; 47% women) who experienced their first melanoma diagnosis between 1970 and 2009 in Olmsted County, Minn. Age, sex, year of diagnosis and disease stage were used to compare melanoma incidence with overall and disease-specific survival rates.
Age- and sex-adjusted incidence increased from 7.9 per 100,000 person-years from 1970 to 1979 to 60 per 100,000 person-years in 2000 to 2009 (P<.001). Women experienced a 24-fold increase, while men had a 4.5-fold increase. Melanoma incidence also increased with age (P=.06).
Each 1-year increase in the calendar year of diagnosis was associated with a decreased risk for death from any cause (HR=0.94; P<.001), while a 7% increased risk for death was associated with each 1-year increase in the age at diagnosis (HR=1.07; P=.01).
There was a decreased risk for death from melanoma associated with each 1-year increase in year of diagnosis (HR=0.93; P<.001). Neither age nor sex was significantly associated with death from disease.
“No patient with malignant melanoma in situ died from disease,” the researchers reported.
Compared with patients with stage 0 or 1 melanoma, patients with stages II, III or IV were more likely to die from melanoma (HR=14.4; P<.001).
“Sun tanning habits around 20 years ago are probably contributing to this in a big way,” Brewer said. “The underlying message would thus be that if we can change the sun tanning/tanning bed use habits of the young women of this country, we could significantly decrease the incidence of melanoma 20 to 30 years from now.” – Bruce Thiel
Disclosure: Relevant financial disclosures were not provided by researchers.
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