We investigated the role of a haplotype from distal as well as proximal polymorphic sites [-7400InDel, -6752AT (rs6676671), -3538AT (rs1800890), -1087AG (rs1800896), -597AC (rs1800872)] of the IL-10 5'-flanking region in a hospital-based case-control study of 165 Caucasian patients with cutaneous melanoma from Germany in comparison with 162 healthy cancer-free Caucasian control participants from the same area matched by age.