Deaths from melanoma have dropped sharply in recent years, according to a study in the American Journal of Public Health that examined data collected by the CDC and National Cancer Institute over a 20-year period on close to a million Americans with this often- aggressive skin cancer.
After increasing 7.5 percent among white Americans (who account for most of the cases in the U.S.) between 1986 and 2013, death rates from metastatic melanoma (the kind that is most deadly because it has spread to other organs) fell 18 percent over the following three years, with the greatest decreases seen in men ages 50 and older.
This unprecedented decline in cancer mortality—greater than that for other common cancers including breast, lung, and prostate in the same time period—is not likely due to earlier detection, the researchers noted, but rather corresponds to the introduction in the last decade of drugs that target specific abnormal genes or proteins or enhance the immune response against the cancer cells. These newer drugs are less toxic and far more effective than traditional chemotherapeutic agents.
