Epidemiology, index of accuracy, histological structure, year-by-year lethality and survival of patients with malignant melanoma. Population study – part I

Abstract

Malignant melanoma of the skin (MMS) is one of the many types of skin tumors that consists of three layers – the epidermis, dermis and hypoderma. MMS develops from melanocyte cells located in the basal layer of the epidermis and producing the pigment melanin. The melanocyte is a dangerous and vindictive cell, it remembers all sunburns and accumulates them. It is the melanin that gives the skin a brown hue as a result of insolation. It also determines the skin color of African-Americans. Birthmarks are also examples of a cluster of melanocytes.

In the structure of cancer incidence in economically developed countries, MMS occupies a fairly modest place, but over the past 30 – 40 years, there has been an unfavorable trend.

In Russia, MMS is not even among the top ten main localities of malignant tumors, its even smaller share in the overall structure of malignant tumors in Russia was in the 80s of the XX century. Until 1982, state reporting did not provide a set of data on the MMS in the USSR and in Russia, including. At our suggestion, in 1982, the Ministry of health of the USSR decided to allocate a separate line in the state reporting for malignant tumors.

In this study, along with assessing the prevalence of MMS in the world and Russia, we focused on the in-depth development of materials for the North-Western Federal district, mainly based on data from the established population cancer registry (PCR).

For many years, the analysis of cancer incidence and survival of patients with malignant tumors was carried out by us on the basis of the PCR of St. Petersburg. In February 2019, the first cancer registry at the Federal district level appeared in Russia – PCR of the NWFD of the Russian Federation. As of 01.02.2019, the PCR of the NWFD of the Russian Federation had more than 1 million cases of malignant tumors (1,067,661), including more than 20,000 (21,428) with MMS (2.0%). The PI on the Federal district level allows for in-depth development of the dynamics of localization and histological structure of malignant tumors fourth sign of ICD–10 to study the characteristics of prevalence and survival of patients malignant tumors in any part of the localization structures (lips, ear, trunk, upper and lower extremities, etc.) that cannot be done on the basis of public reporting, and provide analysis of survival of patients of any localization.