A study in the June 2009 British Journal of Dermatology, reviewing data from a 13-year period in the eastern United Kingdom, has concluded that the melanoma “epidemic” is unlikely to be genuine.
The study attributed the increase in melanoma diagnoses to heightened sensitivity and caution on the side of doctors in classifying benign tumors as melanoma. “Dermatologists, pathologists and other medical practitioners have become more cautious in the last two decades, as the consequences of a wrong diagnosis have become more pervasive,” the authors wrote in their analysis of the data.
