Melanoma Epidemiology

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hoc.2009.03.010Get rights and content

Melanoma is a complex, heterogeneous cancer that continues to increase in incidence. Multiple studies have consistently identified major host and environmental risk factors for melanoma. Nevi, particularly dysplastic nevi, confer much higher risks than most pigmentary characteristics. Ultraviolet radiation exposure is the predominant environmental risk factor for melanoma. Recently, both rare high risk susceptibility genes and common polymorphic genes contributing to melanoma risk have been identified.

Section snippets

US population melanoma rates

Melanoma incidence has continuously increased in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program during the last 30 years (Table 1).1 In 2005, the age-adjusted incidence was 24.6 per 100,000 for men and 15.6 per 100,000 for women. There is a well-described lag in reporting of melanomas,2 so the estimates in Table 1 reflect delay-adjusted incidence. In the 1970s the rate of increase was higher, but the estimated annual percent change (EAPC) is currently 2.9%/y overall in the

Analytic studies of melanoma etiology

Most of the individual analytic studies have not been large enough to have sufficient power to evaluate subgroups of melanoma, however defined. There is also great heterogeneity in study designs, definition of risk factors, collection of data, and extent of phenotyping (eg, self-reports to physician examinations). It is therefore difficult to pool data, conduct meta-analyses, or directly compare results across studies. Meta-analyses use aggregate data; pooled analyses need to “harmonize” the

Family and genetic susceptibility studies

Family history of melanoma confers approximately two-fold increased risk of melanoma.29, 43, 44 Family history of one relative is moderately frequent in the United States; one large study found that 8% of cases had such a history.44 Much more infrequent are families with three or more living members with melanoma; these are the families in which identification of high-risk susceptibility genes is possible. In the same study, only 0.4% of cases reported two or more relatives previously diagnosed

References (61)

  • L.A.G. Ries et al.

    SEER Cancer statistics review, 1975–2005

    (2008)
  • L.X. Clegg et al.

    Impact of reporting delay and reporting error on cancer incidence rates and trends

    J Natl Cancer Inst

    (2002)
  • Anderson WF, Pfeiffer RM, Tucker MA, et al. Divergent cancer pathways for early-onset and late-onset cutaneous...
  • M.R. Karagas et al.

    Pregnancy history and incidence of melanoma in women: a pooled analysis

    Cancer Causes Control

    (2006)
  • C.S. Lea et al.

    Reproductive risk factors for cutaneous melanoma in women: a case-control study

    Am J Epidemiol

    (2007)
  • Bradford PT, Goldstein AM, McMaster ML, et al. Acral lentiginous melanoma: incidence and survival patterns in the...
  • M.G. Cockburn et al.

    Developing epidemic of melanoma in the Hispanic population of California

    Cancer

    (2006)
  • R.C. Burton et al.

    Non-metastasizing melanoma?

    J Surg Oncol

    (1998)
  • H.G. Welch et al.

    Skin biopsy rates and incidence of melanoma: population based ecological study

    BMJ

    (2005)
  • E. Linos et al.

    Increasing burden of melanoma in the United States

    J Invest Dermatol

    (2009)
  • M.A. Tucker et al.

    Clinically recognized dysplastic nevi. A central risk factor for cutaneous melanoma

    JAMA

    (1997)
  • C.M. Olsen et al.

    Nevus density and melanoma risk in women: a pooled analysis to test the divergent pathway hypothesis

    Int J Cancer

    (2009)
  • Y.M. Chang et al.

    A pooled analysis of melanocytic nevus phenotype and the risk of cutaneous melanoma at different latitudes

    Int J Cancer

    (2009)
  • M.A. Tucker et al.

    Melanoma etiology: where are we?

    Oncogene

    (2003)
  • D.E. Elder et al.

    The early and intermediate precursor lesions of tumor progression in the melanocytic system: common acquired nevi and atypical (dysplastic) nevi

    Semin Diagn Pathol

    (1993)
  • V. Bataille et al.

    The association between naevi and melanoma in populations with different levels of sun exposure: a joint case-control study of melanoma in the UK and Australia

    Br J Cancer

    (1998)
  • M. Falchi et al.

    Genome-wide search for nevus density shows linkage to two melanoma loci on chromosome 9 and identifies a new QTL on 5q31 in an adult twin cohort

    Hum Mol Genet

    (2006)
  • G. Zhu et al.

    A genome-wide scan for naevus count: linkage to CDKN2A and to other chromosome regions

    Eur J Hum Genet

    (2007)
  • J.H. Barrett et al.

    Linkage and association analysis of nevus density and the region containing the melanoma gene CDKN2A in UK twins

    Br J Cancer

    (2003)
  • G. Zhu et al.

    Linkage and association analysis of radiation damage repair genes XRCC3 and XRCC5 with nevus density in adolescent twins

    Twin Res

    (2003)
  • Cited by (0)

    This work was supported by the Intramural Research Program, NCI, NIH.

    View full text