Epidemiology of skin diseases in Germany: systematic review of the current state of research - part 1: cutaneous tumor diseases

Epidemiological data are of great importance for the identification of health care needs, the detection of gaps in care, the development of targeted prevention measures, and for the optimization of resource allocation. The aim of this work was to systematically collect all previously published population-based epidemiological data on skin diseases in Germany. The present part 1 of the publication series deals with tumor diseases of the skin. The results on non-infectious (part 2) and infectious skin diseases (part 3) form the other parts of this publication series. A systematic search of the literature spanning the last 15 years was conducted using the PubMed/MEDLINE database. With the aim of including all dermatologic diseases, a diagnostic list was developed based on the ICD-11 catalogue. This list included 1,347 skin diseases and formed the basis for the search. The literature search yielded 4,650 publications. After two-stage screening, 72 studies on 43 different skin diseases were included in the synthesis. Among them were 30 publications on cutaneous tumor diseases, the majority was related to malignant melanoma. This work is the first systematic literature review that aimed to report all available epidemiological data on skin diseases in Germany. In terms of study characteristics, a high heterogeneity was found for the different skin diseases. Even though the methodology of the included epidemiological studies varied considerably, the usefulness of these epidemiological data is extremely wide-ranging. Thus, this work can serve as a reference for various epidemiological questions.