ATHENS, Greece — According to the Global Cancer Observatory and the World Health Organization, over 300,000 new cases of invasive melanoma were diagnosed worldwide in 2022. Countries such as Australia and New Zealand reported alarmingly high rates, with incidence surpassing 300 cases per 100,000 per year among those older than 80 years.
In the United States alone, the American Cancer Society estimates that about 104,960 new melanomas will be diagnosed in 2025.
“The numbers are staggering, and without significant intervention, they will only get worse,” David Whiteman, PhD, a medical epidemiologist at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Brisbane, Australia, said in his keynote lecture at the 11th World Congress of Melanoma (WCM) and 21st EADO Congress 2025.
But is it an epidemic?
According to Whiteman, the statistics leave little doubt. “We are absolutely seeing an epidemic — especially in aging populations,” he said. This epidemic refers to the dramatic rise observed in melanoma incidence over the past few decades.
Older populations are experiencing the most significant increases in skin cancer cases, with invasive melanoma rates rising sharply among those older than 60 years, up to 3% per year in Australia, 4% in White patients in the United States, and up to 7% in Norway, Sweden, and England, he added.
This age-related surge suggests that cumulative sun exposure over decades is one of the main culprits of skin cancer development.
“It’s the sun exposure you had in your teens and twenties that catches up with you later in life,” Whiteman told Medscape Medical News.
Beyond melanoma, other skin cancers like squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma add to the growing number of cases. The true burden of these nonmelanoma skin cancers is unclear due to inconsistent registration practices. “Nonmelanoma skin cancers are vastly underestimated. We simply don’t have the full picture,” Whiteman explained.
But could rising rates of skin cancer be attributed to overdiagnosis? In other words, are many of these cancers benign or insignificant enough to never cause symptoms or death during a patient’s expected lifetime.
The increase in incidence is real and not under discussion, but overdiagnosis could be contributing significantly to rising rates of melanoma, said Josep Malvehy, MD, a dermatologist at the Hospital Clinic Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, speaking at a symposium at the meeting on overdiagnosis.
Clinicians may be catching more benign lesions, which may be due, in part, to heightened awareness, early detection campaigns, and improved diagnostic tools that can identify very small, subtle melanocytic tumors.
A growing body of research suggests that overdiagnosis in White patients can explain much of the rising incidence of melanoma. A recent study in JAMA Dermatology estimated that 59% of melanoma diagnoses in White women and 60% in White men were overdiagnosed in 2014. Still, the authors concluded that, while overdiagnosis accounts for some of the increase in incidence, “there has been an increase in true cancer occurrence — particularly among White men.”
This analysis, among others, dampens the argument that the rapid increase in the incidence of melanoma is truly an epidemic.
Still, whether an epidemic of melanoma or overdiagnosis, prevention remains essential. The most effective way to reduce skin cancer incidence is to prevent it from occurring in the first place, Whiteman said. Ultraviolet radiation exposure is the leading environmental cause of skin cancer, and “the single biggest modifiable risk factor,” he said.
At the individual level, personal protective behaviors such as wearing a broad-spectrum sunscreen, using protective clothing, seeking shade, and avoiding peak sun exposure can significantly reduce the risk. Avoiding indoor tanning, which has been banned in Australia, is also important. “Tanning beds are essentially cancer machines. There’s no safe way to use them,” Whiteman said.
At the community level, multicomponent prevention strategies have proven effective. Australia, for example, has implemented sun safety campaigns for over 40 years, with initiatives such as the “Slip, Slop, Slap” campaign: slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen, and slap on a hat.
“Australia is a global leader in sun protection policies, and we’ve seen the impact firsthand,” he said.
But prevention strategies remain inconsistently implemented across the globe. “We know what works. The challenge is implementing it consistently across different regions,” said Whiteman.
Whiteman and Malvehy reported no relevant financial relationships.
Manuela Callari is a freelance science journalist specializing in human and planetary health. Her work has been published in The Medical Republic, Rare Disease Advisor, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, and others.