The disease burden attributable to nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC) is considerable and expected to continue increasing, according to a study published online July 30 in BMC Cancer .

Wan Hu, from Anhui Medical University in Hefei, China, and colleagues report on the NMSC-related disease burden globally and the temporal trend of disease burden from 1990 to 2019; using the Bayesian age-period-cohort model integrated nested Laplacian approximation, the authors also predict the disease burden in the coming 25 years .

The researchers found that in 2019, the disease burden was significantly higher in men than women. Significant differences in disease burden were seen in different sociodemographic index regions, with heavier disease burden for better socioeconomic development. In 2019, the number of new cases and age-standardized incidence rate (ASIR) was higher for basal cell carcinoma than squamous cell carcinoma. However, the opposite was seen for the number of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) and age-standardized DALYs. From 1990 to 2019, there was an increase in the ASIR of NMSC from 54.08 to 79.10/100,000, with an estimated annual percentage change of 1.78. The same trend was seen in other indicators, including the number of new cases, number of deaths, number of DALYs, age-standardized mortality rate, and age-standardized DALYs rate. From 2020 to 2044, the number of new cases, deaths, and DALYs attributable to NMSC were predicted to increase by at least 1.5-fold.

"The study shows that NMSC poses a substantial global disease burden and predicts that the future disease burden of NMSC will remain severe," the authors write. "We call on health policymakers to act and intervene."

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