Temporal Trends in the Incidence and Mortality of Skin Malignant Melanoma in China from 1990 to 2019

Ruhai Bai; Hui Huang; Minmin Li; Meng Chu

doi:10.1155/2021/9989824

Temporal Trends in the Incidence and Mortality of Skin Malignant Melanoma in China from 1990 to 2019

J Oncol. 2021 Aug 24:2021:9989824. doi: 10.1155/2021/9989824. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Ruhai Bai¹, Hui Huang², Minmin Li³, Meng Chu⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Public Affairs, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, Jiangsu, China.
² Department of Dermatology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, Guangdong, China.
³ Department of Infection Disease Control and Prevention, Shaanxi Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710054, China.
⁴ School of Public Health, Health Science Center, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, Shaanxi, China.

Abstract

Purpose: Skin malignant melanoma (SMM) is one of the fastest-growing cancers in China, with a poor prognosis, high invasiveness, and high mortality rate. The aim of this study was to determine the long-term trends in the incidence and mortality of SMM in China between 1990 and 2019. Patients and Methods. Incidence and mortality data were extracted from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 and were analyzed using an age-period-cohort framework.

Results: The annual incidence net drifts were 3.523% (95% confidence interval (CI): 3.318% to 3.728%) and 3.779% (95% CI: 3.585% to 3.974%) for males and females, respectively, while the corresponding annual net drifts of mortality were -0.754% (95% CI: -1.073% to -0.435%) and -0.826% (95% CI: -1.164% to -0.487%). The local drift from 1990 to 2019 was highest in males aged from 25 to 29 years. After controlling for period deviations in a single birth cohort, the SMM incidence and mortality increased exponentially with age for both sexes. Similar increasing monotonic trends were found for period and cohort effects on the incidence, while a declining trend was found for mortality.

Conclusion: While the age-standardized mortality rate of SMM in China has decreased in both sexes over the past 30 years, the crude incidence rate, age-standardized incidence rate, and crude mortality rate have all increased. SMM may greatly threaten the health of the elderly in China due to the aging population. Appropriate changes should be made to raise the awareness, reduce the exposure to risk factors, and promote the early detection of SMM.