Skin Cancer Facts
Skin cancers (skin neoplasms) are named after the type of skin cell from which they arise.Basal cell cancer originates from the lowest layer of the epidermis, and is the most common but least dangerous skin cancer. Squamous cell cancer originates from the middle layer, and is less common but more likely to spread and, if untreated, become fatal. Melanoma, which originates in the pigment-producing cells (melanocytes), is the least common, but most aggressive, most likely to spread and, if untreated, become fatal.[1][2]
Most cases are caused by over-exposure to UV rays from the sun or sunbeds.[3] Treatment is generally via surgical removal.
Melanoma has one of the higher survival rates among cancers, with over 75% of people surviving 10 years in the UK during 2005–2007.In the UK in 2010, 12,818 people were diagnosed with malignant melanoma, and about 100,000 people were diagnosed with non-melanoma skin cancer. There were 2,746 deaths from skin cancer, 2,203 from malignant melanoma and 546 from non-malignant melanoma. In the US in 2008, 59,695 people were diagnosed with melanoma, and 8,623 people died from it.
- Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States. More than 3.5 million skin cancers in over two million people are diagnosed annually.1
- Each year there are more new cases of skin cancer than the combined incidence of cancers of the breast, prostate, lung and colon.2
- Treatment of nonmelanoma skin cancers increased by nearly 77 percent between 1992 and 2006.1
- Over the past three decades, more people have had skin cancer than all other cancers combined.3
- One in five Americans will develop skin cancer in the course of a lifetime.5
- 13 million white non-Hispanics living in the US at the beginning of 2007 had at least one nonmelanoma skin cancer, typically diagnosed as basal cell carcinoma (BCC) or squamous cell carcinoma (SCC).3
- Basal cell carcinoma is the most common form of skin cancer; an estimated 2.8 million are diagnosed annually in the US. BCCs are rarely fatal, but can be highly disfiguring if allowed to grow.6
- Squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common form of skin cancer. An estimated 700,000 cases of SCC are diagnosed each year in the US.6,7
- The incidence of squamous cell carcinoma has been rising, with increases up to 200 percent over the past three decades in the US.54
- About 2 percent of squamous cell carcinoma patients – between 3,900 and 8,800 people – died from the disease in the US in 2012.54
- Between 40 and 50 percent of Americans who live to age 65 will have either BCC or SCC at least once.4
- Actinic keratosis is the most common precancer; it affects more than 58 million Americans.8
- Approximately 65 percent of all squamous cell carcinomas and 36 percent of all basal cell carcinomas arise in lesions that previously were diagnosed as actinic keratoses.9
- About 90 percent of nonmelanoma skin cancers are associated with exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun.10
- Half of all adults report at least one sunburn in the past 12 months.
Author: American Cancer Society. Cancer Facts & Figures 2013.http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@epidemiologysurveilance/documents/document/acspc-036845.pdf. Accessed January 31, 2013.
