Clinical and histologic trends of melanoma.

BACKGROUND: Several changing clinical and histopathologic melanoma trends occurred from the 1950s to the 1980s. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate melanoma trends during the past decade and to compare present trends to those documented during the past four decades. METHODS: Sex, age at diagnosis, location, tumor thickness, stage, and histologic subtypes were evaluated from 1984 to 1995 and compared with trends during the past four decades. RESULTS: Most changing trends from the past four decades have slowed or stabilized during the past decade. CONCLUSION: Complete reporting of all melanomas to central tumor registries is necessary to accurately analyze present and future melanoma trends. Ongoing and new prevention and control strategies beginning at birth may be necessary to continue the positive efforts to curtail the melanoma epidemic.