Frequency of skin cancer and solar keratoses in a rural southern county as determined by population sampling
✍ Scribed by Z. W. Zagula-Mally; E. William Rosenberg; Mark Kashgarian
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1974
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 430 KB
- Volume
- 34
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0008-543X
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The frequency of skin cancer and solar keratoses in a rural Tennessee county was surveyed using techniques of cluster sampling. Trained nurses and dematologists interviewed and examined 978 Caucasian adults. Of these, 16.3% were found to have solar keratoses (usually multiple), and 4.4% appeared to have skin cancers. There is no question that all discovered skin cancers require definitive treatment. The great number of discovered keratoses, however, raises questions about the practicality of their surgical treatment.
Cancer 34:345-349, 1974.
ANCER AND PRE-CANCER OF THE SKIN ARE
C common, according to standard statistical sources23 and dermatologic reviews.2,QJO. 12,13,*1.22 With few exceptions, such as the surveys by interview and physical examination in Ireland19 and Australia,24~25 data are chiefly derived from mailed questionnaires6 and from patients receiving treatment in hospitals and ~linics.5,~,*,11,15-1~~~0,2~ Such clinic-generated studies do not reflect the true frequency of these conditions, because they exclude those persons with cancer and significant pre-cancers of the skin who do not seek treatment and those who are not aware of the existence of the lesions. I t had been our impression at the West Tennessee Cancer Clinic, serving a population that includes a high proportion of indigent, rural Caucasians, that there existed a great patient delay in seeking therapy. We suspected that the true frequency of these conditions in our population was substantially higher than published figures would indicate. In order to test our suspicion we undertook the study of a representative rural population using the statistical technique called cluster From the