Introduction:

Skin cancer in elderly has not been characterized in Guantanamo.

Objective:

Characterize the patients admitted to the nursing homes "Caridad Jaca" and "San José" in the city of Guantánamo with a diagnosis of skin cancer in the period 2017-2019.

Method:

It was conducted an observational, prospective and cross-sectional study with all the elderly (n=256) with skin cancer (n=15). Studied variables: age, sex, place of birth and lived, personal pathological history, skin phototype, characteristics of the lesion, clinical dermatoscopic and histopathological diagnosis.

Results:

5.9% of the elderly were diagnosed with skin cancer. It was more common in men (53.4%), range age from 60 to 79 (53.4%), were born or lived in urban areas and with skin phototype III (40.0%). 100.0% of the patients were exposed to sunlight, 86.7% without photo-protection means. The cancer was more localized in the face area (66.7%), had between 3 and 4 years of evolution (60.0%) and basal cell carcinoma (46.6%) was the most frequent. Clinical, dermatoscopic and histopathological diagnosis correlation was observed in 80.0 % of the cases.

Conclusions:

The rate of skin cancers in erderly is low, however, more attention is needed to ensure early diagnosis of this disease.

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