The incidence of melanoma, a cancer of pigment-producing skin cells called melanocytes, is increasing more rapidly than any other cancer in the world today. Trends in mortality from melanoma reveal gender specific findings. The death rate for women with melanoma is 2.2 per 100,000 while the death rate for men is 3.2 per 100,000. Women with melanoma have a better survival rate at both 5 and 10 years following diagnosis than do their male counterparts. In general, lesions on the extremities tend to do better than truncal lesions and women tend to have melanomas that occur on the legs They also tend to seek care earlier for suspicious lesions.
Men are more likely to have melanomas on the trunk and they present with melanomas of greater depth.
As greater tumor depth and delays in seeking treatment result in a poorer prognosis, part of the reason for the differences in melanoma survival in women may relate to earlier diagnosis and treatment. However even when comparisons are controlled for Breslow depth of invasion women fare better with melanoma. The role of hormones in the pathogenesis of melanoma remains unknown. There has been some suggestion that estrogen might play a role in melanoma, that pregnancy could exacerbate melanoma, and that melanoma might respond to hormonal manipulations. Earlier data that melanocytes expressed estrogen receptors has been disproved, and a recent metanalysis failed to substantiate a role for oral contraceptive use in the development of malignant melanoma.