Sunday, 14 October 2012

Indoor Tanning leads to non-melanoma skin cancer


It is well known that indoor tanning will lead to the most deadly form of skin cancer - melanoma. The researchers have now found out that indoor tanning will also increase the risk of non-melanoma skin cancer, especially to those who start using them before the age of 25.


What is indoor tanning?

Indoor tanning is a system where artificial UV tanning devices are used to tan. The tanning devices emit ultra-violet radiation to produce a cosmetic tan.

Professor Eleni Linos and a team of researchers at University of California have found out that indoor tanning may account to over 170,000 cases of non-melanoma skin cancer in the United States alone.

Results of 12 studies were analyzed by Linos and her team which involved 9,328 cases of non-melanoma skin cancer. Indoor tanning was associated with 67 per cent high risk of developing squamous cell carcinoma and 29 per cent higher risk of developing basal cell cancer, when compared with never using it.

It was estimated that such tanning accounts for 3.7 per cent of cases of basal cell carcinoma and 8.2 per cent of cases of squamous cell cancer. This corresponds to 98,408 cases of basal cell cancer and 72,244 cases of squamous cell carcinoma resulting in a total of 170,652 cases of non-melanoma skin cancer each year due to indoor tanning.

Those who were less than 25 years old had an increased risk of basal cell carcinoma and showed a non-significant increased risk for squamous cell cancer.

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