Indoor Tanning Increases Melanoma Risk by 74 Percent

Indoor ultraviolet (UV) tanners are 74 percent more likely to develop melanoma than those who have never tanned indoors. Additionally, the more time a person has spent tanning indoors, the higher the risk. Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer, killing approximately 8,650 Americans in 2009. “We hope that these findings, along with what we already know about the risks of indoor tanning, will keep people from using tanning beds,” said Allan C. Halpern, MD, MSc, Chief of the Dermatology Service at New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Vice President, The Skin Cancer Foundation.
In a study of 1,167 melanoma cases and 1,101 people without melanoma (controls) appearing in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, researchers, led by DeAnn Lazovich of the University of Minnesota, found that almost 63 percent of the melanoma patients but just over 51 percent of the control group had tanned indoors. Ultraviolet radiation from tanning machines is cancer-causing to humans, according to a 2009 report released by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), affiliated with the World Health Organization. The IARC also includes solar radiation in its list of the most dangerous types of cancer-causing substances.
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