Melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, is highly treatable when detected early, but when the disease advances, it can lead to death. A new article published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology reveals that men with melanoma — and particularly men with skin of color — are more likely to die than women with melanoma.

We know that men may be less likely to seek medical care than women, so they can be diagnosed with melanoma at later stages,” said board-certified dermatologist and co-author of the study Ashley Wysong, MD, FAAD Founding Chair of the Department of Dermatology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. “However, even after accounting for later stages at diagnosis, men still have worse overall survival rates than women with melanoma, so we suspect that there are some unmeasured social, genetic, tumor-specific and potentially biological factors at play, such as hormones and the way the immune system responds to melanoma tumors.”

The analysis ...