Prevalence of skin cancer in patients aged 18 to 50 years at the Teodoro Maldonado Carbo Hospital during the 2014 -2019 period.: Original Research

Abstract

Introduction: Skin cancer is one of the most common cancers and the number of cases has increased rapidly over the years, the WHO announces that skin cancer incidence increased by 300% during the last two decades. It is more frequent that patients over 50 years old develop skin cancer, however, in the lasts years rates have risen in young patients and there are few epidemiological studies regarding this, therefore this research seeks to find the prevalence of skin cancer in patients that are from 18 to 50 years old.

Methods: This is a retrospective, observational and descriptive prevalence study, where the medical records registered in the AS400 of the Teodoro Maldonado Carbo Specialties Hospital during the period 2014 – 2019 were used. The study had a population of 105 patients who have from 18 to 50 years old.

Results: A sample of 51 patients was obtained where the median age was 40.94 years with a predominance of the female sex (79.47%) compared to the male sex (23.53%). The most frequent type of cancer was basal cell (54.90%), followed by melanoma (27.45%) and squamous cell (7.84%). It was found that most patients have neither risk factors nor comorbidities; 80.4% without risk factors and 90.20% without comorbidities.

Conclusion: The average age was 40.94 years. The most frequent type of skin cancer was basal cell cancer and the predominant sex was female. No significant risk factors or comorbidities were found in this study.