OBJECTIVES: To provide recent data on the epidemiology of actinic keratosis (AK), a recurrent chronic skin lesion, in the general population in France.

METHODS: This survey was conducted between November and December 2022 in a panel of 15,246 individuals aged ≥40 years and representative of the general population in France. This postal survey consisted of 25 questions.

RESULTS: A total of 615 participants reported a lifetime diagnosis of AK, of whom 424 (68.9%) were aged ≥ 65 years. The mean age was 68.9±11.4 years; 310 (50.4%) were men. The crude lifetime prevalence of AK was 4.0% (4.3% in men and 3.8% in women). Prevalence increased with age from 1.7% in the 40-45 age group to 7.1% in the ≥80 age group. Prevalence was higher in coastal regions (5.7% in the South-east region vs. 2.9% in the Centre-Loire Valley region). 352 participants (57.2%) reported phototype I/II. The time since diagnosis was ≥3 years in 296 participants (48.1%). 189 participants (30.7%) no longer had any lesions at the time of the survey. Of the 420 participants reporting lesions at the time of the survey, 103 (24.6%) reported a single lesion and 48 (11.4%) reported >10 lesions. These lesions were located on the face or neck in 327/420 participants (77.9%).

CONCLUSIONS: The crude prevalence of self-reported diagnosed AK in the French population aged ≥40 years is 4.0% (≈1.4 million people affected nationwide). Even if effective treatments exist, two-thirds of participants had not managed to eradicate their lesions at the time of the survey. To avoid progression to squamous cell carcinoma, which would be costly to treat, it is important to improve the early diagnosis of AK, treatment adherence and propose effective and convenient treatments especially given that the disease also affects younger patients with a significant life expectancy.