Evaluation of the frequency of malignant skin tumors in patients referred to pathology department of Ali-ebn-Abitaleb Hospital, Rafsanjan during 2011-2013

Background: Malignant skin tumors are the most common cancers in the world. Rafsanjan city geographically is located in the warm and dry region. Also because of the agricultural jobs, large populations are exposed to sunlight. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and factors affecting the incidence of malignant skin tumors in patients admitted to the pathology department of Ali ibn Abi Talib hospital during 2011 to 2013. Material and method: For this purpose, the medical records and pathologic slides of patients admitted to pathology department of Ali ibn Abi Talib Hospital, Rafsanjan during 2011-2013 with confirmed diagnosis of malignant skin tumors were reviewed and age, sex, occupation, location and number of lesions, histopathologic diagnosis and the tumor subtypes were recorded. Results: In 70 patients evaluated with an average age of 67.1 years,71 malignant skin tumor were evident, there were 62 cases of basal cell carcinoma (87.3%), 7 cases squamous cell carcinoma (9.9%), 2 cases of melanoma (2.8%).Overally, the male to female ratio was 1.7 to 1.Most patients (48.6%) were farmers. The most common site for BCC and SCC was head and neck (in order of 96.8% and 85.7%) and for malignant melanoma was foot(100%).The most common histologic subtype for BCC and malignant melanoma cases were nodular type .SCC cases mostly showed grade II differentiation. Conclusion: The results showed that malignant skin tumor in Rafsanjan patients is more common in farmer, old-aged men. Screening programs to detect early-stage disease in older men, especially those have excessive exposure to sunlight is recommended.

Evaluation of the frequency of malignant skin tumors in patients referred to pathology department of Ali-ebn-Abitaleb Hospital, Rafsanjan during 2011-2013 Keywords:

Malignant skin tumor , Basal cell carcinoma , Squamous cell carcinoma , Malignant melanoma