[Epidemiological study of skin cancer prevalence in three cities of Mexico]

skin cancer is the most frequent malign tumor in the world; the prevalence has been increasing in the last years. There is a sub-register of cases due the majority of them are not cause of death. According to the Histopathological Register of Malign Neoplasm from 2004, the skin cancer occupied the third place of incidence, just preceded by cervical and lung cancer. The aim was to determine the prevalence of skin cancer no melanoma type (epidermoid carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma) and malign melanoma in three Mexican cities.

an observational, non-intervention epidemiological study based on open screening population was performed.

eight cases of skin cancer were detected in 443 subjects examined, seven were females. There were six corresponding to basal cellular cancer and two to malign melanoma; there were three subjects with skin phototype II, two with phototype III and three with phototype IV; 75 % of the patients with diagnosis of skin cancer do not presented previous premalignant lesions.

However, the presence of cancer in suspicious lesions, was significance with an increasing risk of 3.4 times. A limitation of the study was the size of the sample and the heterogeneous population.