The term skin cancer covers mostly three types of cancer:
Melanoma (malignant melanoma)
Basal Cell Carcinoma
Squamous cell carcinoma
In total, more than 2500 Danes are diagnosed with melanoma each year. Nearly 200 of them are young women under the age of 39, and this numbergrows every year. Thus, young Danish women represent the population segment with the highest incidence of melanoma (rf WHO’s cancer date baseGLOBACAN).
The new figures show that Denmark has now overtaken sunnier countries such as Australia and New Zealand in terms of skin cancer incidence. For the 15-39-year old age bracket among women the annual rate of melanoma cases is currently 24 per 100,000 inhabitants. For comparison, the corresponding figure for Australia, which has the second highest incident rate among the countries listed, is 21 cases per year per 100, 000 inhabitants. In our neighboring countries, Sweden and Germany, the risk of melanoma is approximately half as high as in Denmark (with 11 cases per 100, 000 inhabitants