Abstract
The seasonality of presentation of 1019 skin melanomas in Oxford Region 1952-1975, and of 1,523 squamous cell and 4,865 basal cell skin cancers in the region 1967-1975, were analysed using data from the Oxford Cancer Registry. For males and for females, for each of the histologies there was a peak of presentations during July to September. In further subdivisions of the data by age and by skin site, a summer or autumn peak was generally present except where numbers of cases were small. Amplitude of seasonality did not show consistent differences by histology, sex, or skin site, but for both melanoma and squamous cell cancer amplitude was greater for persons aged under 55 years than for older persons. There was no substantial seasonality for presentations of cancers of all non-skin sites in the region. The seasonality of presentation of skin cancers appeared not to be mainly an artefact of the cancer registration process or of organisational aspects of medical care attendance, and only a small proportion of it could be explained as an artefact of the longer term increase in registrations of these cancers. The visibility of skin cancers might have lead to seasonal variation in rapidity of presentation to medical care, for instance for social reasons, or the results might reflect a short induction period effect of exposure to a seasonal insult, perhaps sun radiation, on the aetiology, growth or symptoms of skin cancers; for melanoma there is previous evidence suggesting a short induction period aetiological effect of sun radiation.
Highlights
The present study investigated seasonality of first attendance of skin melanoma cases in the Oxford Health Region of England, compared this with the seasonal pattern of presentations for the two other main histologies of skin cancer - basal and squamous cell cancers - in the region, and investigated the plausibility of various explanations for the seasonality
Over half of the squamous cell cancers and over 80 per cent of the basal cell cancers were on the face
That one such artefact at least did occur for non-skin cancers: the comparatively low number of presentations in December and high number in January in each sex may well have occurred because clinics were closed and patients reluctant to consult over Christmas to New Year
Summary
The Oxford Cancer Registry has collected data on cancers in residents of the Oxford region since 1952.* Registration of cancers is voluntary. Cancer Registry on the age, sex, histology, tumour site and date of first attendance (first hospital attendance for the present tumour or, if no hospital attendance had occurred, first medical presentation) of all skin melanomas registered incident in residents of the Oxford Region*, 1952-75. Data on the same variables were extracted for all other skin tumours registered incident 1967-75 in the region; lack of computerisation of the registry made it impractical to extract data for squamous and basal cell cancers for earlier years. Data were extracted for all non-skin tumours registered incident 1970-72; again, lack of computerisation limited the years of data available
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