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Skin Cancer (cont.)

Outlook

Although the number of skin cancers in the United States continues to rise, more and more skin cancers are being caught earlier, when they are easier to treat. Thus, illness and death rates have decreased.

When treated properly, the cure rate for both basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) approaches 95%. The remaining cancers recur at some point after treatment.

Recurrences of these cancers are almost always local (not spread elsewhere in the body), but they often cause significant tissue destruction.
Less than 1% of squamous cell carcinomas will eventually spread elsewhere in the body and turn into dangerous cancer.

In most cases, the outcome of malignant melanoma depends on the thickness of the tumor at the time of treatment.

Thin lesions are almost always cured by simple surgery alone.
Thicker tumors, which usually have been present for some time but have gone undetected, may spread to other organs. Surgery removes the tumor and any local spread, but it cannot remove distant metastasis. Other therapies, such as radiation therapy or chemotherapy, are used to treat the metastatic tumors.
Malignant melanoma causes more than 75% of deaths from skin cancer.
Of the approximately 100,000 malignant melanomas diagnosed in the United States in 2007, the vast majority were cured. Still, thousands of people die of melanoma each year.