BACKGROUND: The Goiania Population-Based Cancer Registry grants access to a 13-year temporal series on melanoma data, with a histopathologic confirmation of 96.6%. OBJECTIVE: To compare the world incidence, mortality and trends with data of the first populationbased study on cutaneous melanoma in Brazil. METHODS: Two hundred and ninety new cases of melanoma diagnosed in city residents (incidence) and 54 deaths reported to the Goiania Cancer Registry (mortality) were analyzed between 1988 and 2000. The standardized coefficients of age and sex were calculated using the world population. The trends were analyzed by simple linear regression models. RESULTS: One hundred and forty-four cases of melanoma in women and 146 in men. The mean standardized incidence rates were increasing in both men (r²=0.33; p=0.040) and women (r²=0.41; p=0.019), with a significant increase in men over 60 years old and women aged up to 59. The mean standardized mortality rates were increasing in men (r²=0.32; p=0.042) and stable in women, with a significant increase in men aged over 60 years. CONCLUSIONS: In Goiania, as well as around the world, cutaneous melanoma incidence rates are increasing in both sexes. Mortality rates tend to stabilize in women and increase in men.
Brazil; Melanoma; Melanoma/epidemiology; Melanoma/mortality; Skin
