Rosacea is strongly associated with melanoma in Caucasians

Abstract

Abstract Rosacea is often considered a cosmetic problem but is known to be associated with a variety of comorbidities. To identify such risks, we generated two age- and sex-matched real-world cohorts of 122,444 patients each with and without rosacea. In contrast to earlier studies, we found significant associations with malignant melanoma (OR 6.02, 95% CI 5.76–6.32). This association does not exist for an Asian sub-cohort, which could explain previous inconclusive or conflicting reports. Several strongly associated comorbidities like visual disturbances (ICD-10: H53–H54; OR 4.80, 4.68–4.92), metabolic disorders (E73–E79; OR 3.17, 3.11–3.22), joint problems (M25; OR 4.16, 4.08–4.25) and type 2 diabetes (E11; OR 1.62, 1.58–1.65) should be watched as a risk for rosacea patients. Rosacea is associated with some comorbidities and ethnicity may be a risk factor in melanoma development. The retrospective nature of this study and the sole use of ICD-10 code based filtering calls for future validation of our findings. Additionally, confounding factors such as skin type and previous UV exposure should be included in future studies.

Keywords

• Rosacea
• Melanoma
• Comorbidities
• Caucasian
• Real world data