ArticleJournal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology : JEADV2023
Patient presentation, skin biopsy utilization and cutaneous malignant melanoma incidence and mortality in northern Italy: Trends and correlations.
Article in Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology : JEADV, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Overdiagnosis of Melanoma In Situ.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- Screening children and adolescents for cutaneous malignant melanoma: the impossible trade-off between life-years saved and unnecessary biopsies.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Article
- Trends in Survival and Cure Indicators of Thin and Thick Cutaneous Malignant Melanoma in Italy.Cancer medicine · 2026Article
- Key Biomarker Correlations in Cutaneous Melanoma: Implications for Diagnostic, Prognostic, and Therapeutic Strategies-A Retrospective Single-Centered Study.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Article
- Cost-Benefit Analysis of in vivo Reflectance Confocal Microscopy for Melanoma Diagnosis in a Real-World Clinical Setting.Risk management and healthcare policy · 2025Article
- Preliminary analysis of the melanoma multimedia educational program for general practitioners on behalf of the Italian Melanoma Intergroup.Dermatology reports · 2024Article
- Evaluation of a training course for general practitioners within the melanoma multimedia education programme of the Italian Melanoma Intergroup: a study protocol.Dermatology reports · 2024Article
- Evaluation of an Italian Population-Based Programme for Risk Assessment and Genetic Counselling and Testing for BRCA1/2-Related Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer after 10 Years of Operation: An Observational Study Protocol.Methods and protocols · 2024Article
- Cutaneous melanoma in older patients.BMC geriatrics · 2024Article
- Self-detected Melanomas are Thicker Regardless of Patient's Complexity: A Retrospective Analysis.Acta dermato-venereologica · 2023Article
- Patient presentation, skin biopsy utilization and cutaneous malignant melanoma incidence and mortality in northern Italy: Trends and correlations.Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology : JEADV · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
26 authors at 12 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe global increase in incidence of cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM) occurring in the past decades has been partly attributed to increased diagnostic scrutiny of early lesions, with a potential phenomenon of overdiagnosis. The reported positive linear relation between skin biopsy rate and incidence of early CMM is compatible with this hypothesis.
objectivesWe explored the ecological association between the trends in annual dermatologic office visit rates, skin biopsy rates, incidence rates of in situ and invasive CMM by tumour thickness category, and CMM mortality rates in the Emilia-Romagna Region (northern Italy).
methodsFour cancer registries covering a population of 2,696,000 provided CMM incidence data for the years 2003-2017. Dermatologic office visit rates and skin biopsy rates were calculated using the Regional outpatient care database. All rates were age-standardized. Trends were described with the estimated average annual per cent change (EAAPC). Correlations were tested with the Spearman correlation coefficient.
resultsIncidence increased significantly. The increase was steeper for in situ CMM (EAAPC: men, 10.2; women, 6.9) followed by CMM <0.8 mm thick (9.1; 5.2), but the rates grew significantly for most subgroups of CMMs ≥0.8 mm thick. Mortality decreased significantly among women (-2.3) and non-significantly among men. For dermatologic office visit rate and skin biopsy rate the EAAPC were, respectively, 1.7 and 1.8 for men and 1.2 and 0.9 for women. Annual dermatologic office visit rate correlated with skin biopsy rate in both sexes. However, the proportion of skin biopsies out of dermatologic office visits was constant across the years (range: men, 0.182-0.216; women, 0.157-0.191).
conclusionsIn Italy, the increasing CMM incidence trend is, at least in part, genuine. Overdiagnosis-if any-is due to an increased patient presentation at dermatologic offices and not to a lower dermatologic threshold to perform biopsy.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.