Melanoma Rates In Florida Minorities On The Rise
July 22, 2010 at 12:14 PM by AHN · Leave a Comment
Miami, FL, United States (AHN) – A new research study has found that melanoma rates among minorities in Florida is on the rise.
According to researchers racial and ethnic trends in the skin cancer melanoma appear with higher incidence rates among Hispanic men and non-Hispanic black women but lower rates among Hispanic women.
Study authoprs write in a report in the July issue of Archives of Dermatology, “In the past several decades, melanoma incidence has increased more rapidly than that of any other cancer.”
An estimated one in 58 Americans will develop melanoma in their lifetime, with lighter-skinned populations more likely to develop melanoma. However, melanoma is more likely to be diagnosed at more advanced stages among Hispanic and non-Hispanic black individuals than among non-Hispanic white men and women, resulting in higher mortality rates.
Melanoma incidence also varies by region, most likely because of differences in exposure to UV radiation. “An analysis of state and national melanoma trends is critical for the identification of high-risk regions of the country,” write Panta Rouhani, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, and colleagues. The researchers compared melanoma incidence in the Florida Cancer Data System to national estimates from the (SEER) databases between 1992 and 2004.
A total of 109,633 patients were studied between 1992 and 2004. The incidence of melanoma among male Hispanics was 20 percent higher in Florida than in other state’s cancer database registries. Furthermore, female non-Hispanic black individuals in Florida had a 60 percent higher incidence of the disease than the same population in the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) registries studied.
Black men in Florida had the same melanoma risk as black men across the United States. White Floridians actually had lower rates of melanoma compared with whites nationwide.
The authors say the cause of melanoma among non-whites cannot be inferred from descriptive data, but they believe the trends obesrved in Florida are partly attributed to UV radiation exposure and the high UV index of Florida.
Migration patterns among ethnic groups is also another possible culprit non-Hispanic white individuals may have moved to Florida from areas with lower UV radiation indexes, whereas those immigrating from Latin American countries were likely exposed to more UV radiation at younger ages.
