Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2015 May;2(2):149-163.
doi: 10.2217/mmt.15.12. Epub 2015 May 18.

Epidemiological and genetic factors underlying melanoma development in Italy

Giuseppe Palmieri  1   1 , Maria Colombino  1   1 , Milena Casula  1   1 , Mario Budroni  2   2 , Antonella Manca  1   1 , Maria Cristina Sini  1   1 , Amelia Lissia  2   2 , Ignazio Stanganelli  3   3 , Paolo A Ascierto  4   4 , Antonio Cossu  2   2
Affiliations
Review

Epidemiological and genetic factors underlying melanoma development in Italy

Giuseppe Palmieri et al. Melanoma Manag. 2015 May.

Abstract

Among human cancers, melanoma remains one of the malignancies with an ever-growing incidence in white populations. Recent advances in biological and immunological therapeutic approaches as well as increased efforts for secondary prevention are contributing to improve the survival rates. It is likely that a significant fall in mortality rates for melanoma will be achieved by further increase of the early detection through a more accurate selection of the higher-risk individuals (i.e., carriers of predisposing genetic alterations). A similar scenario occurs in Italy. In the present review, we have considered data on incidence, survival and mortality rates of melanoma in Italian population, including evaluation of the main risk factors and genetic mutations underlying disease susceptibility.

Keywords: melanoma epidemiology; melanoma incidence; melanoma mortality; melanoma susceptibility; mutation analysis; predisposing germline mutations.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Financial & competing interests disclosure PA Ascierto is consultant of Bristol-Myers Squibb, MSD, and Roche-Genentech. He participated into the Advisory Board from Bristol-Myers Squibb, MSD, Roche-Genentech, GSK, Amgen, Celgene, Medimmune, and Novartis. He received honoraria from Brystol Myers Squibb, MSD, and Roche-Genentech. Work was partially supported by the Italian Ministry of Health “Progetto Ricerca Finalizzata” and Sardinia Regional Government (Regione Autonoma della Sardegna). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Figures

<b>Figure 1.</b>
Figure 1.. Distribution of standardized incidence and mortality rates for melanoma in Italy over the period 1986–2009.
(A) Males; (B) females. ASR: Age-specific rate.
<b>Figure 2.</b>
Figure 2.. Incidence and mortality for melanoma in Italy.
Crude incidence (A) and mortality (B) rates for melanoma in Italy over the period 2005–2009, according to the patients’ geographical origin.
<b>Figure 3.</b>
Figure 3.. CDKN2A germline mutations in familial melanoma patients, according to number of MPM into the family.
Distributions of frequencies (A) and mutation rates (B) are presented.
<b>Figure 4.</b>
Figure 4.. Distribution of CDKN2A mutation frequencies in melanoma patients from different Italian areas.
<b>Figure 5.</b>
Figure 5.. Types of CDKN2A germline mutations in melanomas from Italian population.
Mutation designation (according to the gene product modification) and frequency (referred to a total of 292 mutations) are reported.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Ferlay J, Soerjomataram I, Ervik M, et al. International Agency for Research on Cancer 2012. Lyon, France: 2012. GLOBOCAN 2012 v1.0, Cancer incidence and mortality worldwide: IARC CancerBase No. 11.http://globocan.iarc.fr
    1. Cho E, Rosner BA, Feskanich D, Colditz GA. Risk factors and individual probabilities of melanoma for whites. J. Clin. Oncol. 2005;23:2669–2675. - PubMed
    1. Rigel DS. Epidemiology of melanoma. Semin. Cutan. Med. Surg. 2010;29:204–209. - PubMed
    1. Jhappan C, Noonan FP, Merlino G. Ultraviolet radiation and cutaneous malignant melanoma. Oncogene. 2003;22:3099–3112. - PubMed
    1. Thompson JF, Scolyer RA, Kefford RF. Cutaneous melanoma. Lancet. 2005;365:687–701. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources