There are 2 categories of skin cancer – non-malignant and malignant. Non-malignant skin cancers include Basal Cell Carcinoma and Squamous Cell Carcinoma. If detected early, these type of skin cancers are not life threatening, and can be removed as an out-patient procedure. Dr. Kaplan performs Mohs Surgery to remove Basal and Squamous Cell Carcinomas right in his dermatology office.

Melanoma is a malignant type of skin cancer. A 2007 study showed that melanoma accounts for up to 3% of all pediatric malignancies, including about 2% of malignancies in those aged younger than 20 years and 0.3%-0.4% of malignancies in pre-pubescent children. The study also showed that melanoma diagnoses are seven times more common between the ages of 10 and 20 years than between 0 and 10 years (J. Clin. Oncol. 2007;25:1363-8).

Furthermore, the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database showed an increased incidence of nearly 3% per year during 1985-2003 in those aged 1-19 years in the United States.

Yet there remains a lack of awareness of the prevalence of melanoma in children, and some physicians, including dermatologists, still believe that children don’t get the disease.

Those who believe that children don’t get melanoma are doing their patients an injustice, and such thinking is largely to blame for the fact that diagnosis and treatment are delayed in 40% of childhood melanoma cases. A review of 13 melanoma cases in children younger than 17 years showed that 85% of the cancers were nodular in type and had a mean thickness of 3.2 mm when diagnosed; 5-year survival was a mean of 59% in the children (J. Am. Acad. Dermatol. 2005;53:816-22). The authors concluded that “the lack of awareness and reluctance to diagnose pediatric melanoma can lead to higher incidence of thick melanomas.”

It also is important to keep in mind that childhood melanoma occurs most often in white patients, with only 6.5% of cases occurring in nonwhites, which is a higher percentage than seen in adults. Also, unlike adults, there is a higher predominance of cases in females, with 56%-61% of pediatric cases occurring in girls. Further, the incidence of melanoma is increasing at a faster rate in girls aged 10-19 years than among boys in that same age group, which may reflect the popularity of tanning beds among girls.

In regards to where malignant melanoma lesions appear in children, studies show 20% of cases occur on the head and neck, and 80% occur on the trunk or extremities. The study also showed that younger children tend to get skin cancers on their head and neck; of those aged 1-4 years, 39% presented with head and neck cancers, compared with only 12% of those aged 5-19 years.