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Summer means longer, warmer days and more time spent outdoors. With those pleasures, unfortunately, comes an increased risk of skin cancer. The American Academy of Dermatology predicts that American physicians will diagnose nearly a million cases of skin cancer this year, with the most serious type, malignant melanoma, expected to kill over 7,500 people. That means that the incidence of malignant melanoma is increasing at a greater rate than any other cancer, and translates into one American dying every hour from the disease.
"Everybody sensed the risk was rising rapidly, but seeing the numbers is a little frightening," says Dr. Darrell Rigel, associate professor of dermatology at New York University Medical School.
 A report Rigel delivered to the Academy of Dermatology, based on data from hospital tumor registries nationwide, offers the most comprehensive analysis of just how common the disease has become. In 1930, the risk of developing melanoma for Americans was just 1 in 1,500. That rose to 1 in 250 by 1980. If current rates continue, Rigel says, by the year 2000 the lifetime risk will be 1 in 75.
Doctors have warned for years about the rising rate of melanoma. It is the fifth most common cancer in the United States--behind lung, breast, colon, and prostate cancers. "There's a delay of 10 to 20 years from the time of damage by exposure to the sun to the time we see melanomas, so the increases we're seeing today are due to what people did in the 1970s and '80s," says Rigel. "We're hoping as people become more aware we'll see those rates begin to level off." Although 80 to 90 percent of the sun-related damage that can lead to melanoma occurs prior to age 18, the peak age for developing the disease is 45 to 60.
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