Screening for Skin Cancer: Recommendation Statement.

Skin cancer includes melanoma and basal and squamous cell carcinoma. Basal and squamous cell carcinoma, known together as nonmelanoma skin cancer, are the most common types of cancer in the United States and represent the vast majority of all cases of skin cancer (> 98%).1 However, nonmelanoma skin cancer rarely results in death or substantial morbidity (< 0.1% of patient deaths are caused by this type of cancer), whereas melanoma skin cancer has notably higher mortality rates.1 For this reason, although a visual skin examination by a clinician will detect all 3 of these cancer types, in understanding the potential benefit of screening, the USPSTF prioritized outcomes related to melanoma in developing this recommendation statement. In 2016, an estimated 76,400 U.S. men and women will develop melanoma and 10,100 will die from the disease.1