Newly diagnosed melanoma cases are projected to rise by 10.6% in 2026, according to the updated Skin Cancer Facts & Statistics report from the Skin Cancer Foundation.

The update, which includes the latest information from the American Cancer Society (ACS), notes that there will be an estimated 234,680 melanoma cases diagnosed this year, with 112,000 of these cases classified as invasive and 122,680 as in situ cases. Noninvasive cases occur more often in males than females, as indicated by projections that 46,600 cases will be in women and 65,400 in men.

“For clinicians, a challenge lies in the biological uncertainty of these findings related to melanoma,” said Justin M. Ko, MD, MBA, clinical professor of dermatology at Stanford University, Redwood City, California. “At a population level, we are likely seeing effects of overscreening, overbiopsy, and overinterpretation leading to the detection of indolent lesions, yet at the individual patient level, we are successful in identifying early-stage lesions, a number of which may have progressed towards causing harm and morbidity,” 

“However, we currently lack the precision tools to distinguish which thin or early melanomas may eventually cause harm from those that would remain dormant or indolent,” Ko told Medscape Medical News.

The ACS data also highlighted a 46.6% annual rise in the number of newly diagnosed invasive melanoma cases in the past 10 years.

There are a number of factors that may be contributing to the increased incidence of melanoma, said Jesse Miller Lewin, MD, chief of Mohs Micrographic Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and director of the Kimberly and Eric J. Waldman Melanoma and Skin Cancer Center at Mount Sinai in New York City, who is a spokesperson for The Skin Cancer Foundation. A part of the increase is likely a result of better detection and awareness and an aging population, now living longer, Lewin told Medscape Medical News. Although melanoma is clustered in older patients in general, “we certainly do see melanoma in young people,” he said, adding that advances in dermoscopy, mole mapping, and other noninvasive imaging technologies may also be helping detect more cases of melanoma. 

“Some of it is advances in detection and earlier detection, and then some of it is that people continue to live longer and so we are seeing more,” Lewin told Medscape Medical News. Although melanoma is clustered in older patients in general, “we certainly do see melanoma in young people,” he said, adding that advances in dermoscopy or other noninvasive imaging technologies may also be helping detect more cases of melanoma. 

The update highlights a decline in melanoma-related deaths of about 3% annually in men and 2% annually in women between 2016 and 2026, “largely because of major advances in the treatment of advanced disease,” the update said. Still, despite the drops in melanoma-related mortality rates over the past decade, 8510 people are anticipated to die of melanoma in 2026 (3010 women and 5500 men).

Lewin pointed out that social media has contributed to the spread of misinformation about the risks of sunscreenpotentially even causing rather than preventing cancer. “There’s a lot of misinformation out there that is being propagated extensively in a way that was not possible before social media,” which, he said, could have an impact “on the number of skin cancers that we see in the next 10-15 years” if people are adopting some of some of the false information on social media. 

“For clinical practice, these trends emphasize the importance of balancing the worthy goal of early detection with the risks and harm of overbiopsy and overtreatment,” said Ko. “The current environment of screening places significant pressure on specialty access, which can paradoxically create barriers for high-risk patients who require timely evaluation,” he added.

“Moving forward, clinical efforts may be more effective if focused on precision prevention and approaches that leverage risk-stratification to match in-person specialty care access to those patients who are most likely to need and benefit from it. Technology tools may help with efforts around precision access if developed and deployed with this aim in mind, otherwise they may run the risk of contributing to overutilization,” Ko said.