Men are suffering more than the women due to skin cancer in wealthy nations since 1985. The mortality rates among women rising more slowly or even declining, researchers have told a medical conference in Glasgow.
Reasons for the discrepancy between sexes are unclear but a study shows that the death rate among British men has increased by 74 per cent since the mid-1980s but for women it went up by only 9 per cent. Men are “less likely to protect themselves from the sun” or heed public health warnings, Dorothy Yang, a doctor at the Royal Free London hospital in London said on Sunday.
In Ireland and Croatia – it almost doubled. In Australia, nearly six out of every 100,000 men succumbed to the disease in 2013-15. That is twice the second highest death rate (Finland), but only a 10% increase compared to 30 years earlier.
“Australia has been an early implementer of public health media campaigns since the 1970s to promote ‘sun-smart’ behaviour,” Yang said before presenting her data at the 2018 UK National Cancer Research Institute Conference in Glasgow on Sunday.
CDC statistics shows in the United States, which was not included in the study, male melanoma mortality went up by about 25%.
Japan has by far the lowest melanoma mortality, for both men and women, at 0.24 and 0.18 per 100,000, respectively.
Scientists are focusing their investigation on biological or genetic factors which might also play a role in skin cancer, but findings so far are inconclusive, Yang said.
> Shiuly Rina
