Patients of colour predominately present with acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM), the most lethal subtype of cutaneous melanoma. We here advocate for increased mechanistic studies using models derived from the patient communities suffering most from ALM to develop therapies that benefit patients across all ethnic and racial groups.
References
American Cancer Society. Cancer Facts & Figures 2021. https://www.cancer.org/content/dam/cancer-org/research/cancer-facts-and-statistics/annual-cancer-facts-and-figures/2021/cancer-facts-and-figures-2021.pdf (2021).
Qian, Y. et al. The ongoing racial disparities in melanoma: an analysis of the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database (1975-2016). J. Am. Acad. Dermatol. 84, 1585–1593 (2021).
Alicea, G. M. & Rebecca, V. W. Emerging strategies to treat rare and intractable subtypes of melanoma. Pigment Cell Melanoma Res. 34, 44–58 (2020).
Bradford, P. T., Goldstein, A. M., McMaster, M. L. & Tucker, M. A. Acral lentiginous melanoma: incidence and survival patterns in the United States, 1986-2005. Arch Dermatol. 145, 427–434 (2009).
Huang, K., Fan, J. & Misra, S. Acral lentiginous melanoma: incidence and survival in the United States, 2006-2015, an analysis of the SEER Registry. J. Surg. Res. 251, 329–339 (2020).
Newell, F. et al. Whole-genome sequencing of acral melanoma reveals genomic complexity and diversity. Nat. Commun. 11, 5259 (2020).
Jamerson, T., Rebecca, V. W. & Aguh, C. Genetic characteristics and response to systemic therapies of acral lentiginous melanoma at a tertiary care center-a retrospective review. J. Natl Med. Assoc. S0027-9684, 00186-3 (2021).
Bristow, I. R., de Berker, D. A., Acland, K. M., Turner, R. J. & Bowling, J. Clinical guidelines for the recognition of melanoma of the foot and nail unit. J. Foot Ankle Res. 3, 25 (2010).
Haque, W., Verma, V., Butler, E. B. & Teh, B. S. Racial and socioeconomic disparities in the delivery of immunotherapy for metastatic melanoma in the United States. J. Immunother. 42, 228–235 (2019).
Rapoport, B. L. et al. Ipilimumab in pretreated patients with advanced malignant melanoma: results of the South African expanded-access program. J. Glob. Oncol. 3, 515–523 (2017).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Alicea, G.M., Rebecca, V.W. Un-Fair Skin: racial disparities in acral melanoma research. Nat Rev Cancer 22, 127–128 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41568-022-00443-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41568-022-00443-8
- Springer Nature Limited
This article is cited by
-
Obstacles and opportunities in studying melanoma in Latin America
Nature Cancer (2023)
-
Cell position matters in tumour development
Nature (2022)
-
Cutaneous and acral melanoma cross-OMICs reveals prognostic cancer drivers associated with pathobiology and ultraviolet exposure
Nature Communications (2022)