Mf. Healsmith et al., FURTHER EXPERIENCE OF PUBLIC-EDUCATION FOR THE EARLY DIAGNOSIS OF MALIGNANT-MELANOMA IN LEICESTERSHIRE, Clinical and experimental dermatology, 18(5), 1993, pp. 396-400
Publicity campaigns alerting the public to the need for early attentio
n to malignant melanoma (MM) were conducted in Leicestershire, England
during the summers of 1987, 1988 and 1989. There was a marked, and st
atistically significant, rise in the number of referrals with good pro
gnosis MMs in the period immediately after the first campaign. In the
2 subsequent years, despite further publicity campaigns, the number of
MMs diagnosed per week remained lower than the postpublicity peak of
1986/87. The postpublicity rise was less marked in 1987/88 and 1988/89
. In the next year (1989/90), in which there was no publicity campaign
, the total number of MMs seen was higher than in 1988/89. Numbers of
MMs seen per week remained relatively steady throughout the year. Ther
e was again no publicity in 1990/91, and the total number of MMs diagn
osed was about the same as in the previous year. There was a rise in t
he number of MMs seen per week in what would have been the postpublici
ty period of this year. The initial results would be consistent with t
he initial postpublicity rise in numbers of MMs seen being made up of
lesions seen 'early', that is, in 1986/87 and 1987/88. Since these les
ions were seen earlier than they would have been had there been no pub
licity, the number of MMs seen in 1988/89 was lower than it would othe
rwise have been and the publicity effort appeared to have less effect.
By 1989/90 and 1990/91 this effect seems to have been wearing off. It
may be that, at least in low MM incidence areas like the UK, it is be
tter to pulse public education for the early diagnosis of melanoma rat
her than to use annual or continuous campaigns. However, longer-term e
xperience, and the pooling of data between centres will be necessary t
o test this conclusion.