We see skin cancer on the face and trunk of people in their 30s pretty commonly now. We're seeing it in people in their 40s almost routinely. It's hard to say definitively that there is increasing incidence of skin cancer. However, based on what's going on in my practice and the practice down the street, it appears that more people of all ages are developing it. Statistics gleaned from the medical literature suggest that Siegle's experience is not unusual.
Skin cancer is one out of every three cancers diagnosed, making it the most common of cancers.
And it is becoming even more common, it appears. Even rainy Portland, Oregon, is not immune. A 1989 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association , which found that between the 1960s and 1980s, cases of skin cancer in the soggy city increased by between three- and fivefold. Perhaps the most disturbing news about skin cancer, however, is the increasing incidence of melanoma, the virulent disease of the skin's pigment-producing cells or melanocytes. Incidence rates have been climbing since the 1930s, and that trend is continuing.