Thinning out incidence.

There are no official recommendations for melanoma screening among the general population, as no strategy has proven worthwhile. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) initiated in 2014 a screening program where primary care physicians offered annual skin exams at otherwise scheduled visits for patients 35 years and older. At 5 years in, screened patients were more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with in situ melanoma and nearly twice as likely to be diagnosed with thin invasive melanoma. On the other hand, detection of melanomas thicker than 4 mm was virtually identical. In other words, this type of screening does not appear to directly detect more life-threatening melanomas, but only time will tell if treatment of more indolent pigmented lesions will translate to better overall melanoma morbidity and mortality rates by potentially avoiding meaningful progression of treated lesions. | Matsumoto, JAMA Dermatol 2022