Skin cancer - UK mortality statistics

Malignant melanoma mortality statistics can be found here, including by age and sex, trends by age at death and over time up to 2008. Top line mortality for 2009 only can be found on the Data table: Cancer cases and deaths in the UK.

The latest cancer incidence statistics available for the UK are for 2009, and for mortality the latest statistics are for 2010. We are currently working to update all the incidence and mortality pages on this site. Find out why more up to date statistics are not yet available.

By age and sex
Trends over time

Trends by age at death

In 2008 there were 2,067 deaths from malignant melanoma in the UK (Table 2.1). 1-4

Table 2.1: Numbers of deaths and rates for malignant melanoma, UK, by country, 2007

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The numbers of deaths and the age-specific rates are shown in Figure 2.1. The mortality rates rise steadily with age but as the chart shows, substantial numbers of deaths occur in younger people. In 2008, 110 people aged under 40 died from malignant melanoma and over half of all deaths were in people aged under 70.

Figure 2.1: Numbers of deaths and age-specific mortality rates by sex, malignant melanoma, UK, 2007

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The age-standardised mortality rates in the UK (Figure 2.2) show a continuous rise for men from around 1.2 per 100,000 in the early 1970s to 3.1 in 2008. Female rates were slightly higher than those for men in the early 1970s at 1.4 per 100,000 but seem to level off from the 1990s onwards and are now at 2.2 per 100,000.

Increases in mortality reflect increases in incidence but are much less pronounced due to the effects of earlier diagnosis and improving treatment. The lower mortality rates since the mid-1980s for women compared with men, despite the higher female incidence, is a reflection of the better female survival rates, partly the result of the larger proportion of thinner lesions in women compared with men.

Figure 2.2: European age-standardised incidence and mortality rates, malignant melanoma, by sex, UK

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The mortality rate in persons aged 65 and over dying from malignant melanoma has almost tripled in the last 30 years in the UK. The figures showed that the rate of people aged 65 and over dying from melanoma in the UK rose from 4.0 deaths per 100,000 people in 1979 to 11.4 deaths per 100,000 people in 2008.

In contrast, the death rate for people aged 15-64 has remained stable over the same period at around 2 deaths per 100,000 people.

Age-specific malignant melanoma mortality trends in the UK are very similar to those for incidence with the greatest increase in the oldest age groups.Rates for men aged over 65 have seen a 5-fold increase from 3.0 per 100,000 in 1971 to 15.2 in 2008 (Figure 2.3).

Figure 2.3:Age-specific mortality rates, malignant melanoma, males, UK, 1971-2007

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Malignant melanoma mortality rates for women over 65 have more than tripled from 3.0 per 100,000 to 10.3 per 100,000 over the same period (Figure 2.4). At younger ages, there is some indication that female rates are levelling off - an encouraging trend also recorded in other white populations of North America, Australia and the Nordic countries. 5,6

Figure 2.4:Age-specific mortality rates, malignant melanoma, females, UK