WEDNESDAY, Oct. 9, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Patients with a first melanoma diagnosis have an increased risk for a second melanoma diagnosis, regardless of race and ethnicity, according to a research letter published online Oct. 9 in JAMA Dermatology.

Shoshana Zhang, from Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin, and colleagues examined the absolute risk of second primary melanoma across race and ethnicity using data from patients with a first primary cutaneous melanoma diagnosis from 2000 to 2019 identified from 17 Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results registries.

A total of 546,756 patients with first primary diagnosis were identified: 0.2, 0.6, 0.4, 3.1, and 96 percent had American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian or Pacific Islander, Black, Hispanic, and White race and ethnicity, respectively. The researchers found that White patients had the highest absolute incidence of first and second primary melanoma (47.67 per 100,000 people and 1,457.40 per 100,000 person-years, respectively); under null and alternative hypotheses, the incidence rate of two primary melanomas was higher for Whites. Black patients had the highest relative risk of second primary melanoma compared with the general population, followed by Asian or Pacific Islander, Hispanic, American Indian or Alaska Native, and White patients (standardized incidence ratios, 264.39, 196.68, 62.71, 48.47, and 11.63, respectively). The highest absolute numbers of excess second primary melanomas per 100,000 person years was seen for White patients (1,332.07).

"While we found elevated relative risks of second primary melanoma among racial and ethnic minority groups versus the general population, measures of absolute risk were far less substantial, illustrating that reporting only relative measures, as done previously, is potentially misleading," the authors write.

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