Preface

Chapter 9 **Skin Cancer Screening 249**

**VI** Contents

Carolyn J. Heckman, Susan Darlow, Teja Munshi and Clifford Perlis

Chapter 10 **The Role of Furin in the Development of Skin Cancer 271**

Rethika Ravi and Terrence J Piva

Since the middle of the 20th century, the incidence of skin cancers such as malignant mela‐ noma is increasing most in the Caucasian population, doubling every 10 years to reach the current rate of 10-15 new cases per year per 100,000 inhabitants. Epidemiological models suggest that prediction is that now a person out of 75 is likely to develop a melanoma in his lifetime. Cutaneous carcinomas are also more frequent.

Along with the increased incidence, increased mortality secondary to melanoma was ob‐ served in the second half of the twentieth century, followed by a stabilization probably related to efforts in primary and secondary prevention. Therapeutic advances in this area have been quite limited until recently , despite the enthusiasm generated by clinical trials of immuno‐ therapy, and encourage further efforts to organize prevention and screening compaigns.

Prevention and detection of skin cancer and melanoma in particular are important public health goals in order to decrease the impact of these frequent tumours in young patients. These objectives require particularly strong solidarity between GPs and dermatologists, both in firstline for the evaluation of the skin of patients and to detect their risk factors.

Despite the fact that new recent progress in skincancer treatment have been described, and that new targeted molecules or new therapeutic procedures help our patients, new insights regarding skin biology are also needed to develop new strategies. Moreover interactions be‐ tween dermatologists and oncologists are mandatory: many targeted therapies developed to treat systemic malignancies have shown important efficacy for the treatment of both cutane‐ ous malignancies and non-malignant skin disease, such as Hedgehog inhibition for basal cell carcinoma and Rituximab for Pemphigus Vulgaris.

This Highlights in Skincancer written by leading experts in their field synthesize common skincancer topics in clinics and research. It is not a guide intended to be a comprehensive and exhaustive review of all the aspects of dermato-oncology but really a companion that should help the clinicians and researchers to find important and specialized information in this field. It is also an awareness of the close collaboration that must exist between dermatol‐ ogists and medical oncologists in the management of our patients.

#### **Pierre Vereecken, MD, PhD**

Cliderm, European Institute for Dermatology Practice and Research, Chirec Cancer Institute, Brussels, Belgium

**Chapter 1**

**Incidence of Melanoma**

Paulina Wawro-Bielecka,

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/55239

Jerzy Stojko

**1. Introduction**

**and Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer in the**

**Inhabitants of the Upper Silesia, Poland**

Małgorzata Juszko-Piekut, Aleksandra Moździerz, Zofia Kołosza, Magdalena Królikowska-Jerużalska,

Grażyna Kowalska-Ziomek, Dorota Olczyk and

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

inhabitants of the Upper Silesia in 1999-2007.

In recent years, non-melanoma incidence rate has been ranked in the 4th place, and cutaneous melanoma has not been recorded in the first ten places among the most frequent cancers in the inhabitants of the Upper Silesia. Despite high incidence rates, the progno‐ ses of the skin cancers are good, thus the cancer mortality is ranked lower than in the first ten places [1-3]. The authors of the study have already presented epidemiological analy‐ ses of the incidence of those cancers [4-7]. Thus the aim of the present study was to continue the evaluation of the incidence rates of non-melanoma skin cancers in the

The Upper Silesia Industrial Area, occupying the central part of Silesia, has been the most industrial and most ecologically degraded area of Poland. Called the Silesia Agglomera‐ tion, it is the biggest urban and industrial agglomeration in the country assembling a number of big cities and industrial areas surrounding them. This affects the landscape and living conditions of habitants. Here, the main source of pollution is the industry, especial‐ ly mining and energy industries. Heavy industry, underdeveloped as well as underinvest‐ ed, emits enormous amount of the particulate matter and gases into the atmosphere [8].

and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2013 Juszko-Piekut et al.; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2013 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution,
