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Immunotherapy of Melanoma pp 3–20Cite as

Melanoma—Introduction, History and Epidemiology

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Abstract

Melanoma is a type of skin cancer; it arises due to uncontrolled proliferation of melanocytes. It is most lethal when it progresses into advanced stages and metastatic melanoma is considered as one of the deadliest types of skin cancers. The present chapter is intended to introduce melanoma to the readers. In the beginning of the chapter, basic details of skin structure are described and the various cell types present in the top most layer of skin (epidermis) are presented. The role of melanocytes in pigmentation and the source as well as functions of melanin are described. The chapter then discusses the definition of melanoma and lists some of the prominent public figures who succumbed to melanoma and also the ones who survived melanoma. The history of melanoma including its first descriptions by Greek physicians, earliest available physical evidences, coining of the term melanoma by Sir Robert Carswell, pioneering work done by William Noris, Wallace Clark and Alexander Breslow, and the discovery of BRAF mutations are discussed in this chapter. Next, the epidemiology of melanoma based on data published by American Cancer Society and by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), through its GLOBOCAN 2012 project is discussed; details on global incidence of melanoma, the places with highest melanoma incidence, trends in estimated number of cases in USA between 2012 and 2016, the top 5 states in USA with high melanoma incidence are described and the melanoma incidence in USA is compared between male and female population.

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  1. Faculty of Medicine, Department of Dermatology and Skin Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Anand Rotte & Madhuri Bhandaru

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  1. Anand Rotte
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Rotte, A., Bhandaru, M. (2016). Melanoma—Introduction, History and Epidemiology. In: Immunotherapy of Melanoma. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48066-4_1

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