One in five people in England gets skin cancer

About one in five people in England is at risk of skin cancer during their lifetime, experts say.

The number of cases of this terrible disease has reached a record level, and experts believe the reason for this growth is the aging population and improving methods of diagnosis of cancer, the Daily Mail reported.

One reason could also be more frequent sun exposure and more overseas vacations.

There were 224,092 cases of skin cancer in England in 2019, a 26 percent increase over the 177,677 cases reported in 2013, according to data analyzed by NHS Digital and the British Association of Dermatologists.

Between 2013 and 2019, the total number of cases was more than 1.4 million.

"We are rapidly approaching a quarter of a million cases a year in England. While more needs to be done to prevent skin cancer, we also need to increase the resources available to combat the growing incidence of the disease," said association president Dr. Tanya Blaker in a related note.

In 2019, there were 15,332 cases of melanoma, up from 12,885 in 2013. Melanoma is less common than other skin cancers, but can be more deadly.

There were also 47,977 cases of cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma in 2019, up from 34,672 in 2013. When diagnosed early, this type of skin cancer is curable in most cases.

There were 158,934 cases of basal cell carcinoma in 2019, up from 128,406 in 2013. This form of the disease is quite rare.

In the same year, 1,849 rare skin cancers were identified, up from 1,714 cases in 2013.

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