Seasonal patterns in the diagnosis of malignant melanoma of skin and eye in upstate New York

Abstract

Seasonal patterns in diagnosis were examined for 2403 melanomas of the skin and 238 melanomas of the eye diagnosed among residents of upsatate New York State in 1975 to 1979 and reported to the population‐based New York State Cancer Registry. The previously reported summer peak in diagnosis of melanoma of the lower extremity in females was confirmed and shown to hold for melanomas diagnosed at both early and late clinical stages; increased recognition of earlier stage melanomas in summer months is an unlikely explanation for this peak. For skin melanomas at other anatomic sites, seasonal patterns by sex and clinical stage at diagnosis were more complex. A previously unreported seasonal pattern was evident for trunk melanomas in males, with a March–April peak. Significant seasonal variations in diagnosis of melanomas of the eye were evident for both males and females, but the seasonal patterns differed between the sexes. Possible explanations for these findings on skin and eye melanomas were discussed with reference to psychosocial and hormonal factors as well as ultraviolet stimulation.

Is melanoma survival influenced by month of diagnosis?

“…While we found no difference according to age and sex, previous reports suggested that seasonality was more pronounced among females [5,18,29,33] and people over 55 years of age [5,6,12]. Psycho-social and hormonal factors, as well as different patterns of sun exposure, were proposed as possible explanations [7,9]. Our observation that tumours diagnosed in June are more likely to be of the superficial spreading subtype corroborates previous findings [5,6,30], although the explanation for this subtype specificity is currently unknown.…”

“…Seasonal variation in cutaneous melanoma incidence is a welldocumented phenomenon, with several studies [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] showing an incidence peak in summer. Some hypotheses have been proposed: such as the effect of prevention campaigns [14], seasonal variation in clothing habits [15,16], seasonal change in medical care, or a short-term effect of ultraviolet radiation exposure [11,16,17].…”

Seasonal variations in the diagnosis of cutaneous melanoma

“…The reasons for this seasonality of melanoma diagnosis have been controversial in the past, focusing mostly on the following explanations: several groups supported the role of UV radiation, which may have a short-term proliferative effect leading to the development of cutaneous melanomas diagnosed during summertime. 1,4 Our data do not support this explanation because in Germany, the main period of sun exposure is between July and August, and the peak of melanoma diagnosis was in June. However, a long-term effect of UV radiation can not be excluded completely.…”

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6] A direct influence of the increased UV radiation on melanoma development in summer was discussed as a possible reason for this diagnostic peak in summertime, 1,2,4 as was a change in clothing habits during the summer months, 5,6 resulting in an increased melanoma detection rate. However, there are few studies reporting on different seasonal peaks for subgroups of patients with melanoma.…”

Photoperiod modulates melanoma growth in C57BL/6 mice

“…Several epidemiologic studies have revealed remarkable seasonal peaks of melanoma diagnosis in spring and summer (1–3). This has also been the case in other forms of cancer (4,5).…”