Concern over late melanoma diagnoses

On the occasion of May being Skin Cancer and Melanoma Prevention and Awareness Month, dermatologists are expressing concern about the problems of access to health facilities for citizens during the three-year coronavirus pandemic and how this has impacted the diagnosis of melanoma.

In comments to Kathimerini, Alexandros Stratigos, professor of dermatology at the University of Athens and director of the Andreas Syngros Hospital, said “there is concern about a shift in the diagnosis of melanomas from early stages to intermediate or even more advanced stages with a more unfavorable prognosis.”

Indeed, evidence of delayed diagnoses is recorded in a Greek study coordinated by the First Dermatology Clinic of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki’s Medical School. Accordingly, in 2020 the number of new cases of melanoma in northern Greece was reduced by 36.4% compared to the expected number based on the data of the four-year period 2016-19.

Melanoma patients diagnosed in 2020 were younger in age compared to newly diagnosed patients of previous years, which is related to the fear due to Covid-19 of older people to seek health services, while diagnoses in intermediate and advanced stages of the disease were more than expected.

In Greece, melanoma cases are estimated at seven per 100,000 men and eight per 100,000 women per year.

This translates into approximately 1,300 cases per year. Melanoma is considered to be a disease mainly of urban populations, as the population in cities is mainly active indoors and is exposed to the sun abruptly and for a short period of time during the summer months.

As Stratigos points out, “melanoma is more associated with light skin, sunburns and multiple moles, and less with chronic sun exposure, in which case we see more non-melanoma skin cancers.”