Skin Cancer and Melanoma: Forty-Fold Gaps, and the Commonest Types Go Uncounted

Melanoma accounted for an estimated 338,000 new cases and 58,000 deaths worldwide in 2024, but recorded rates of new cases vary more than forty-fold, from 42 per 100,000 men a year in Australia and New Zealand to commonly under 1 per 100,000 in most African and Asian countries (age-standardised, GLOBOCAN 2020). The far more common non-melanoma skin cancers are so incompletely counted that no one can say precisely how many people they affect, even though, worldwide, they are estimated to cause about as many deaths as melanoma.

Skin cancer is often talked about as one, mostly minor, condition. The data describe something more varied: a melanoma usually found early in some countries, a metastatic disease whose outlook has changed within a decade, and very many basal cell and squamous cell cancers that keep dermatology and surgical services busy yet barely appear in the statistics. This study keeps melanoma and non-melanoma (keratinocyte) skin cancers separate throughout, because the evidence on each, and the gaps in it, are very different.

Melanoma rates are highest in fair-skinned populations, and highest of all in Australia and New Zealand

The International Agency for Research on Cancer's GLOBOCAN 2024 estimates, published in 2026, put melanoma of the skin 17th among cancers worldwide for new cases, at 1.6% of all diagnoses, and 22nd for deaths, at 0.6%^[1]. The global shares hide large differences.

The most detailed country-by-country analysis uses the previous edition, GLOBOCAN 2020. It estimated 325,000 new melanoma cases and 57,000 deaths in 2020, with the highest age-standardised incidence in Australia and New Zealand: 42 per 100,000 person-years in men and 31 in women. Western Europe (19 per 100,000 in both sexes), North America (18 in men, 14 in women) and Northern Europe (17 in men, 18 in women) followed. In most African and Asian countries, rates were commonly below 1 per 100,000^[2]. Within Australia, the Queensland Cancer Registry recorded an age-standardised invasive melanoma incidence of 72 per 100,000 a year in 2010 to 2014, which the registry's researchers describe as the highest recorded in the world^[4]. Age-standardised rates from different sources often use different reference populations, so the Queensland figure should not be set directly against the GLOBOCAN rates above.

Deaths vary far less than diagnoses. In 2020, age-standardised melanoma mortality peaked at 5 per 100,000 person-years in New Zealand, and the authors note that geographic variation in mortality was less pronounced than for incidence^[2]. If 2020 rates simply continued, the same team projected 510,000 new cases (a rise of about 50%) and 96,000 deaths (68%) a year by 2040, so that any rise would come from population growth and ageing alone^[2].

National figures give the scale in two countries with deep data. In the United States, an estimated 112,000 people will be diagnosed with invasive melanoma in 2026, 5.3% of all new cancers, and 8,510 will die from it^[5]. In the UK, there are 19,392 new cases a year (2019, 2021 to 2022) and about 2,600 deaths a year (2022 to 2024)^[6].

The most common skin cancers are the least well counted

Basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, together called keratinocyte cancers or non-melanoma skin cancer, are described by English researchers as the most common cancers in White populations, yet also as "substantially under-reported"^[3]. Many registries do not collect them, or record only a person's first tumour, so they are left out of most "all cancers" totals.

The global estimates show the problem plainly. GLOBOCAN 2024 counted 1,138,314 new cases of non-melanoma skin cancer worldwide, but that figure leaves out basal cell carcinoma, the most common type, altogether. The report's authors warn that groupings "not routinely collected across" population-based registries, naming non-melanoma skin cancer, carry extra uncertainty "warranting caution in interpretation"^[1]. Even so, it is the most common cancer among both men and women in Australia and New Zealand, and among men in the United States, though it is left off the global maps^[1]. In the United States, the American Cancer Society's annual statistics state that basal and squamous cell skin cancers "cannot be estimated because these diagnoses are not recorded by most cancer registries"^[7].

Where counting has been done carefully, the numbers change markedly. England's National Disease Registration Service data for 2013 to 2022 were reanalysed so that each person could contribute one basal cell and one squamous cell cancer per year, instead of only their first ever. This identified 67% more basal cell carcinomas and 42% more squamous cell carcinomas. In 2022 the European age-standardised rates were 295 per 100,000 person-years for basal cell carcinoma and 102 for squamous cell carcinoma^[3]. Cancer Research UK reports around 156,000 new non-melanoma skin cancer cases a year in the UK, based on 2016 to 2018 data^[8], about eight times its annual melanoma figure, though the two cover slightly different years.

Who appears in the count also depends on who reaches a dermatologist. In Denmark's national skin cancer registry, 2013 to 2022, basal cell carcinoma rates were 2.4 to 2.7 times higher in the top quarter of earners than in the lowest income group, which the authors say could reflect "either higher rates of detection or higher rates of disease occurrence"^[9]. Under-counting shapes how services are planned and funded.

Nor are these cancers harmless at population level. Worldwide, GLOBOCAN 2024 estimated 58,721 deaths from non-melanoma skin cancer, almost exactly the 58,398 from melanoma^[1]. In England, the non-melanoma skin cancer death rate rose by 4.0% a year from 2013, about twice as fast in men as in women, while squamous cell carcinoma incidence kept climbing^[3].

Ultraviolet radiation and sunbeds: strong evidence, modelled shares

Ultraviolet (UV) radiation is the main known risk factor for both groups of skin cancer, and the evidence for it comes from populations, not from any one person's history. In the United States, more than 90% of melanoma cases are estimated to be attributable to UV exposure^[7]. In the UK, Cancer Research UK estimates that 86% of melanoma cases (2015) are preventable^[6]. These are population attributable fractions: modelled estimates of how much disease might be avoided if exposure across a whole population changed. They are not proof that UV caused any individual's cancer, and they say nothing about blame. Our study of preventable cancer causes sets UV alongside other risk factors worldwide.

Artificial tanning is the UV exposure policy can reach most directly. In 2009 the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified exposure to UV-emitting tanning devices as "carcinogenic to humans"^[10], its highest category. That classification describes how strong the evidence is that sunbeds can cause cancer, not how large the risk is.

The size of the association comes from a 2012 systematic review and meta-analysis of 27 studies. Ever using a sunbed was linked to a summary relative risk of melanoma of 1.20 (95% confidence interval 1.08 to 1.34), about 20% higher than in people who had never used one. First use before age 35 was linked to a relative risk of 1.87 (1.41 to 2.48). The estimated rise in risk for each additional session per year was 1.8%, but its confidence interval (0% to 3.8%) reached zero, so the dose-response is less certain than the other two findings^[11]. From national survey data, the authors estimated that 3,438 melanoma cases in 2008 in 18 western European countries could be attributable to sunbeds, most of them (2,341) in women^[11]. WHO has since estimated that sunbed use is linked to more than 450,000 non-melanoma skin cancer cases and more than 10,000 melanoma cases a year across the United States, Europe and Australia^[10].

Regulation has followed unevenly. By 2017, WHO reported that more than 40 national and provincial authorities had brought in outright bans or restrictions, and that Brazil and Australia had banned commercial sunbeds^[10]. The 2012 review's authors concluded that the harm "could be avoided by strict regulations"^[11].

Where prevention has run longest, melanoma is falling in younger generations

Queensland, Australia, began public sun-protection campaigns in the early 1980s. Its registry data for 1995 to 2014 show invasive melanoma incidence falling in people under 40, starting with those born around the mid-1960s and falling most steeply for those born around 1980 and later. Incidence rose in people aged 60 and over, particularly men. The researchers call this evidence of "real advances in the prevention and early detection" of invasive melanoma^[4]. A six-population study using registry data from 1982 to 2011 found Australian melanoma incidence declining by 0.7% a year from 2005, while rates in US White people, the UK, Sweden and Norway had risen by more than 3% a year^[12].

A similar generational pattern is now visible in the United States. Melanoma incidence in men under 50 has fallen by about 1% a year since the early 2000s, and it has been stable in women under 50, while rates continue to rise in older age groups^[7]. Overall US incidence rose by an average of 1.1% a year over 2014 to 2023^[5]. Because older people have the highest rates, case numbers are projected to keep rising in all six populations studied even where age-specific rates fall^[12].

Not every recorded rise is a rise in disease. Diagnoses of melanoma in situ, the earliest non-invasive form, increased in every age group in Queensland^[4], and about 122,680 in situ melanomas are expected in the United States in 2026, more than the number of invasive cases^[7]. Part of the rise in recorded melanoma may reflect more skin examination finding early lesions rather than more disease; the sources used here do not measure how much. That is why incidence is best read alongside death rates.

Survival is high when melanoma is found early, and has doubled for metastatic disease in the US

Melanoma has some of the highest survival of any cancer in countries with good data. In the United States, five-year relative survival was 94.7% for people diagnosed in 2016 to 2022. By stage it was 100.0% for localised melanoma, 76.0% for regional and 34.0% for distant (metastatic) disease. Of US melanomas, 77% were diagnosed at the localised stage, 10% regional, 5% distant and 9% with stage unknown^[5]. In the UK, 92.7% of people diagnosed in 2018 are predicted to survive ten years or more^[6]. These describe people diagnosed years ago in high-income countries; comparable figures for most of the world do not exist. Our study of cancer survival around the world explains how such comparisons are made.

For metastatic melanoma the change has been unusually fast. Five-year relative survival after distant-stage melanoma in the United States was 15% in the mid-1970s and 16% in the mid-1990s, then 35% for people diagnosed in 2015 to 2021^[7]. US melanoma death rates, stable for two decades, fell by nearly 6% a year in 2013 to 2017, which the American Cancer Society attributes to new treatments for metastatic disease; the decline slowed to 1.2% a year in 2017 to 2023^[7]. Because mortality, not only survival, fell, this improvement is less open to the lead-time and overdiagnosis effects that can inflate survival figures.

The gains are not shared equally. In the United States, five-year relative survival after melanoma diagnosed in 2015 to 2021 was 95% for White people and 70% for Black people^[7]. Melanoma is rarer in populations with darker skin^[2]. The American Cancer Society attributes disparities in cancer outcomes "in large part" to socioeconomic deprivation, noting later-stage diagnosis and a lower likelihood of recommended treatment in deprived areas^[7]; the sources used here do not break the melanoma gap itself down by stage or access to care. The problem sits in diagnosis and care, not in the people. Our study of stage at diagnosis looks at how late diagnosis shapes outcomes across cancers.

What the evidence asks of us

• Count every skin cancer. The English researchers conclude that their findings "highlight the importance of accurate tumour counting methods for healthcare planning"^[3]. Registries that record only a person's first keratinocyte cancer, or none, leave service planners without the most basic figure. Routine, complete registration of basal cell and squamous cell cancers, as Denmark and England now attempt, should be the norm in high-incidence countries.
• Regulate sunbeds. The evidence linking sunbeds to melanoma, especially with first use before 35, is consistent across studies^[11], and WHO has published guidance on public health interventions to manage them^[10]. Countries that have acted show bans and restrictions are achievable.
• Fund population prevention for the long term. Queensland's falling rates in younger generations followed decades of public campaigns^[4]. Results take a generation to show, so funding cycles need to match. Prevention at population level is about environments and policy, not individual blame.
• Close the survival gaps. A 25-point survival difference between White and Black people in the US^[7] and the one group in Queensland whose melanoma mortality was not stable or falling, men aged 60 and over^[4] call for services designed around the people with the poorest outcomes.

More of our work on this is collected in the Cancer research library.

Language: this piece says "people with cancer" and "people living with and after cancer", and describes the illness and its treatment plainly, without combat metaphors. Clinical terms such as "stage", "incidence" and "net survival" are used in the sense the cited source defines them.

Why we're publishing this

Skin cancer charities and melanoma support groups make the case for prevention, earlier diagnosis and better services every day, often against the assumption that skin cancer is minor. The figures here support that case: outcomes that depend heavily on stage and on who reaches care, rising non-melanoma death rates in England, and a counting gap that leaves the commonest cancers out of the plans. We have gathered it in one place, every figure traced to its source, for people living with and after skin cancer, their families and the organisations beside them.

How to read this data

Incidence, mortality and survival are different measures. Incidence counts new diagnoses, mortality counts deaths, and relative survival compares people with melanoma with similar people in the general population. Rates here are age-standardised unless stated; the global rates use the world standard population and the English keratinocyte rates the 2013 European standard, so they cannot be compared with each other; the Queensland rate comes from a separate registry series and should not be compared with either.

Editions and years differ. Global totals are GLOBOCAN 2024; the regional comparison uses GLOBOCAN 2020, the most recent edition with a published melanoma-specific analysis we could verify. National figures cover different periods, stated with each. The 2040 and 2031 figures are projections made in 2022 and 2016 under stated assumptions.

Non-melanoma counts are incomplete everywhere. Global figures exclude basal cell carcinoma, and many national registries record only the first tumour per person, or none. Treat any non-melanoma total as a minimum.

Rising incidence is not the same as rising disease. More skin examination can raise recorded incidence, especially of in situ and thin melanomas. Death rates and stage-specific figures are the better guide to change in serious disease. The evidence is strongest for fair-skinned populations in high-income countries; data for Africa, Asia and Latin America are thin.

Use this data

Free to cite with attribution to Better Health For Everyone. Charities, campaigners and journalists are welcome to reuse these figures and charts. For the underlying figures as a spreadsheet, get in touch.

Important: This article summarises published research for general information. It is not medical advice and cannot be used to diagnose, treat or predict anything about an individual. If you have concerns about your own or someone else's health, please speak to a qualified health professional.

Sources

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2. Arnold M, Singh D, Laversanne M, et al. Global burden of cutaneous melanoma in 2020 and projections to 2040. JAMA Dermatology, 2022. europepmc.org/article/MED/35353115
3. Mistry K, Levell NJ, Karponis D, Wakkee M, Whiteman DC, Proby C, Venables ZC. Trends in keratinocyte cancers in England, 2013-22: basal cell carcinoma incidence, cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma incidence and nonmelanoma skin cancer mortality. British Journal of Dermatology, 2026. europepmc.org/article/MED/42508807
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9. Sieborg J, Hædersdal M, Lei U, et al. Impact of socioeconomic status and distance to a dermatological clinic on the disease burden of keratinocyte carcinoma and its precursors in Danish office-based dermatological practice. Clinical and Experimental Dermatology, 2025. europepmc.org/article/MED/40576367
10. World Health Organization. More can be done to restrict sunbeds to prevent increasing rates of skin cancer. WHO, 2017. who.int/news/item/21-06-2017-more-can-be-done-to-restrict-sunbeds-to-prevent-increasing-rates-of-skin-cancer
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