Retrospective evaluation of sociodemographic characteristics and UV radiation exposures of patients diagnosed with skin cancer between 2010-2020

Objectives: Although the incidence of skin cancers is increasing gradually, it can cause significant morbidity and mortality in case of late diagnosis. Today, the role of increasing ultraviolet radiation exposure in the development of skin cancer is known. The aim of this study is to emphasize the effect of sociodemographic characteristics of patients on the prevalence of skin cancer and the effect of UV radiation exposure on skin cancer and the importance of early diagnosis and treatment in disease prognosis and recurrences. Methods: Patients who applied to Karadeniz Technical University Faculty of Medicine Department of Dermatology between January 1, 2010 and January 1, 2020 and were diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma, basal cell carcinoma, and melanoma clinically and histopathologically were included in this study. In our study, 2165 data were analyzed, 658 patients were excluded because data were missing, a total of 1507 patients were included in the study. Features such as diagnosis age and year, gender, education level, occupation, number of lesions, size of the lesion, diabetes, hypertension, hematological malignancy, organ transplantation, solid organ malignancy, autoimmune disease, additional diseases such as inflammatory disease, history of immunosuppressive drug use, family history of skin cancer, number of recurrences, treatment received, lymph node or organ metastasis, number of operations, dermatology outpatient clinic control interval, sun protection habits of all patients included in the study were recorded from the file information and by calling the patients by phone. Results: Of the patients included in the study, 896 (59,5%) were male and 611 (40,5%) were female. The mean age at diagnosis of skin cancer in all patients was 68,52 (±13,9) years. Age at diagnosis was higher in women than men, and the difference was statistically significant (p<0,01). 8,9% of the patients had a family history. The most common additional disease in the patients was hypertension (41,5%) and diabetes (15,6%) was the second most common disease. The highest rate of smoking was found in patients with a diagnosis of SCC, and the rate of alcohol consumption was the highest in patients with a diagnosis of melanoma (p>0,05). Basal cell carcinoma was found in 55,6% of patients, squamous cell carcinoma in 37,1%, and melanoma in 11,6% of patients. Considering the distribution of lesion locations by gender, the most common lesion location was found in the face region in both genders, and the second most common lesion was found on the scalp in men and in the lower extremities in women. Although the total number of skin cancers has increased in recent years, this increase was not statistically significant. Recurrence rates, mean time to recurrence and number of skin cancers were found to be higher in male patients than in females, and no statistically significant difference was found. While the average number of skin cancers in the patients was 81 years and over, the highest number of recurrences was found in the patients aged 61-80 years. There was no statistically significant difference in the mean number of skin cancer and the mean number of recurrences according to the age ranges of the patients. In patients with hematological malignancy, solid organ malignancy, organ transplantation and immunosuppressive drug use, the mean age at diagnosis was found to be lowest in patients with organ transplantation, and the highest mean was found in patients with hematological malignancy (p<0,01). While the mean age at diagnosis was 61,89 (±13,91) in patients with a change in sun protection, it was 71.71 (±12,47) in patients without a change in sun protection, and the difference was statistically significant (p<0,01). Changes in sun protection behavior were observed more frequently in patients with dermatology outpatient control and recurrence in skin cancer (p=0,04 and p=0,086, respectively). When the mean lesion size and lymph node metastasis and organ metastasis rates by gender were examined, it was found that the mean lesion size (p<0,01), lymph node metastasis (p=0,253) and organ metastasis rates (p<0,01) in men were higher than women. Conclusion: In our study, we found that skin cancers were most frequently diagnosed between the ages of 61-80, the most common location of skin cancer was the face, skin cancer was diagnosed more frequently in male patients than females, the rate of sun protection was higher in patients with a family history of skin cancer than in patients without a family history