5 months ago
(USA TODAY/WLTX) -- The most common cancers known to humankind are not, fortunately, the most deadly. The vast majority of non-melanoma skin cancers can be cured in a single day, in a single procedure.
But they still have a major impact. More than 2 million Americans were treated for 3.5 million non-melanoma skin cancers (mostly basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas) in 2006 - and the numbers are growing steadily, one new study says.
"It's a huge public health problem" clearly linked to too much sun exposure and tanning, says Brett Coldiron, a dermatologist in Cincinnati and a co-author of the study, published in the March Archives of Dermatology. The study, which counted skin cancer removals among Medicare recipients and estimated cases in the rest of the population, found twice as many of the cancers as a 1994 study (done with different methods). It also found skin cancer removals in Medicare patients increased 4% a year from 1992 to 2006.
It's possible the new study overcounted some cancers that required multiple treatments. But it also missed cancers fully removed during biopsies, the authors say.
"In any case, we're talking about large numbers of individuals," says Robert Stern, a dermatologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He conducted another study that concluded one in five white, non-Hispanic Americans has at least one non-melanoma skin cancer by age 70.
Many have had experiences like these:
The fact that the face is the most common place for these cancers increases their profile, says Deborah Sarnoff, a dermatologist in New York City and vice president of the non-profit Skin Cancer Foundation. "Your face is the first thing people see. It's your billboard. It's your identity."
Modern surgery can do wonders, "but you almost always end up with a scar," Coldiron says.
And, even today, some people fare much worse. "I've seen people lose their eyes," says Howard Rogers, a dermatologist in Norwich, Conn., and co-author of the Medicare study. "And there are rare cases of death," he says, usually from squamous cell carcinomas, which are most dangerous for people with suppressed immunity.
Regardless of outcome, "people don't like hearing the word 'cancer' at all," Coldiron says.
It comes as an especially big shock to young people, Sarnoff says: "It used to be unusual to see teenagers or women in their 20 or 30s with skin cancer. It's not that unusual anymore."
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