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People who had breaks or ulcers in their skin or whose cancer growths lacked pigment were also likely to have faster-growing cancers. Tumors grew faster in males, older people and those with fewer freckles and moles.
Local Angle
The study may be of high interest locally.
With its year-round sunny climate, Southern Arizona suffers the highest skin cancer rates in the country and the second-highest in the world, topped only by Queensland, Australia.
Arizona Cancer Center researchers have reported that the rates of occurrence of all types of skin cancer are in the range of four to seven times higher in Southern Arizona than in Minnesota or New Hampshire.
In the early 1990s, Cancer Center researchers determined that skin cancer rates for Southern Arizona and Australia were nearly identical — and higher than elsewhere in the world.

News Elsewhere

Faster-growing melanomas not usually 'bad-looking'

By Rob Waters
Bloomberg News
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 12.19.2006
Melanomas, the deadliest type of skin cancer, grow more quickly when they are thicker, elevated from the skin and symmetrical, researchers say.
The scientists said the findings, published Monday in the Archives of Dermatology, should be incorporated into training materials used by doctors to help identify the most-aggressive tumors for immediate treatment.
While doctors have long suspected that some melanomas grow more rapidly than others, which cancers are in the faster-growing category has been unclear. Identifying these melanomas is important because they are usually treatable in the early stages. About 60,000 new cases of melanoma will be diagnosed in the U.S. in 2006, according to the American Cancer Society.
"The penalty associated with diagnostic delay is particularly severe with a rapidly growing melanoma," wrote the study authors, led by Wendy Liu of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in East Melbourne, Australia.
People who had breaks or ulcers in their skin or whose cancer growths lacked pigment were also likely to have faster-growing cancers, according to the study. Tumors grew faster in males, older people and those with fewer freckles and moles, the researchers found.
Risk factor
Many people with fast-growing melanoma lack some of the signs usually associated with skin cancer, according to the study. Freckles are a risk factor for getting cancer, and their absence in some people who get fast-growing melanoma may make it more difficult for physicians to recognize the danger, the researchers wrote.
"Bad-looking" melanomas, as judged by shape and color, actually grow slower than those that don't look so bad, according to the report.
About 400 patients with invasive melanoma, which penetrates deep into the skin, were examined by Liu and colleagues. The researchers described the cancerous growths and interviewed patients and family members.
The researchers charted the characteristics of the patients and tumors and inquired when the people had first noticed spots on their skin that later developed into melanomas.
The study was supported by the University of Melbourne and the Australasian College of Dermatologists.
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