Even by cautious calculations, the worldwide incidence of cutaneous melanoma is high and predicted to rise sharply over the next 2 decades, cancer epidemiologists warn.
An estimated 325,000 people worldwide received a new diagnosis of cutaneous melanoma in 2020, and if present trends continue, the incidence of new cases is predicted to increase by about 50% in 2040, with melanoma deaths expected to rise by almost 70%, Melina Arnold, PhD, from the Cancer Surveillance Branch of the International agency for research on Cancer in Lyon, France, and colleagues reported.
“Melanoma is the most lethal form of skin cancer; this epidemiological assessment found a heavy public health and economic burden, and our projections suggest that it will remain so in the coming decades,” they wrote in a study published online in JAMA Dermatology.
Down Under Nations Lead
Arnold and colleagues looked at data on age-standardized melanoma incidence and mortality rates per 100,000 person-years (PY) by country, each of 20 world regions as defined by the United Nations, and according to the UN’s four-tier Human Development Index, which stratifies countries into low-, medium-, high-, and very high-income categories.
As noted previously, the researchers estimated that there were 325,000 new melanoma cases worldwide in 2020 (174,000 cases in males and 151,000 in females). There were 57,000 estimated melanoma deaths the same year (32,000 in males and 25,000 in females.
The highest incidence rates were seen in Australia and New Zealand, at 42 per 100,000 PY among males and 31 per 100,000 PY in females, followed by Western Europe, with 19 per 100,000 PY in both males and females; North America, with 18 and 14 cases per 100,000 PY in males and females, respectively; and Northern Europe, with 17 per 100,000 PY in males and 18 per 100,000 PY in females.
In contrast, in most African and Asian countries melanoma was rare, with rates commonly less than 1 per 100,000 PY, the investigators noted.
The melanoma mortality rate was highest in New Zealand, at 5 per 100,000 PY. Mortality rates worldwide varied less widely than incidence rates. In most other regions of the world, mortality rates were “much lower,” ranging between 0.2-1.0 per 100,000 PY, they wrote.
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