Chronic solar ultraviolet damage associated with malignant melanoma of the skin.

A retrospective study of 226 cases of cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM) was done to determine if patients with CMM showed evidence of chronic solar ultraviolet radiation damage, i.e., a past history of actinic keratosis (AK), basal cell carcinoma (BCC), squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) anywhere on the patient's skin, and solar elastosis (SE) at the site of a CMM. This statistical analysis consisted of 119 clinical records and 158 pathology slides after all cases of lentigo CMM were deleted. CMM showed no statistical correlation with AK, BCC, SCC, or SE. This supports the idea that it is not the chronic solar-ultraviolet radiation exposure that causes CMM.