Skin cancer survival rate

There are four major types of skin cancer: Melanoma, basal cell carcinoma of the skin, squamos cell carcinoma of the skin, and neuroendocrine carcinoma of the skin. Together, there are over 1 million new cases of basal cell carcinoma and squamos cell carcinoma of the skin each year, with around 1,000 deaths.

Because of the disparity, the survival statistics here exclude both basal cell carcinoma of the skin and squamos cell carcinoma of the skin, and include melanoma and neuroendocrine carcinoma of the skin. For the sake of simplicity we will refer to both simply as 'skin cancer.'

An estimated 42,610 men and 31,400 women (74,010 in all) will be diagnosed with skin cancer annually, and the disease will take the lives of 11,790 people each year. Over 68,000 of those diagnoses and over 8.700 of those deaths will be from melanoma.

Incidence and Mortality

The median age at diagnosis for skin cancer is 61, and the median age at death from skin cancer is 70.

Skin cancer survival rates by stage

The overall 5-year relative survival for skin cancer is 90.8%.

Speaking specifically of melanoma, 5 year relative survival percentages by stage of disease are:

• -- Localized disease: 98.1%
• -- Regional disease: 61.4%
• -- Metastatic disease: 15.3%

As can clearly be seen from the statistics, catching melanoma early gives patients one of the highest 5-year relative survival rates of any cancer, while not catching it until it has metastasized has a drastically different prognosis.

Sources

National Cancer Institute SEER Stat Fact Sheets: Skin Cancer

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