SAN DIEGO, July 28 -- Skin cancer -- long thought to be of major concern primarily to Caucasians -- is a danger to those with darker skin as well, investigators reported here.
"Physicians and patients don't think skin cancer occurs in people with skin of color," said Hugh Gloster, M.D., of the University of Cincinnati, speaking in an interview after his oral presentation at the American Academy of Dermatology's summer meeting.
And, in fact, skin cancer is rare in darker-skinned populations, he said. The rates in Caucasians are about 70 times higher than among blacks, for instance. "But when it does occur, it tends to be more deadly" than in Caucasians, Dr. Gloster said.
One reason for that, he said, is that neither patients nor doctors are on the lookout for skin cancer in populations with darker skin, so that cancer tends to be diagnosed later, when it is less treatable. But another key reason, he said, is that two of the major forms of skin cancer -- melanoma and squamous cell carcinoma -- occur in different parts of the body than they do in Caucasians.
