London: Banning sunbed use could prevent a quarter of cases of the most common form of skin cancer in the under-40s, a new research suggests.
The study from doctors at Yale University in the U.S. revealed that indoor tanning significantly increases the risk of basal cell carcinoma.
It found that sunbed users are 69 per cent more likely to develop BCC before the age of 40 than people who never use the tanning method.
The link was strongest among women, and the risk increased with years of sunbed use.
And that study concluded that avoiding sunbeds can prevent a quarter of all cases of ‘early onset’ BCC – when the disease occurs before the age of 40.
Among women, who are greater users of sunbeds, 43 per cent of cases could be avoided if sunbeds were banned.
Unlike other forms of skin cancer, such as malignant melanoma, BCC can be easily treated and survival rates stand at 98 per cent.
But since the 1970s cases have increased by 17 per cent, which is likely to be partly fuelled by sunbed use and holidays abroad.
And British doctors say they are seeing increasing numbers of youngsters with this type of cancer. In April, under-18s were banned from using sunbeds although they still remain popular and three million adults use them every year.
This Yale University study is the latest to show the damaging effects of sunbeds on the skin.
“We routinely see young women with skin cancer in our practice,” the Daily Mail quoted Dr David J. Leffell, professor of dermatology and surgery at Yale School of Medicine and author of the study as saying.
“In the past, this was extremely rare. But now in many cases the patients acknowledge their use of tanning parlours, and I think this study confirms the harmful nature of this activity,” he noted.
The study has been published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
ANI
