While incidence rates of some cancers are declining, Mayo Clinic is experiencing a dramatic rise of skin cancer, especially among people under 40. According to a study published in the April issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Mayo Clinic researchers claim the incidence of melanoma has soared, with young women the hardest hit.
“We anticipated we’d find rising rates, as other studies are suggesting, but we found an even higher incidence than the National Cancer Institute had reported using the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Result database, and in particular, a dramatic rise in women in their 20s and 30s,” says lead investigator Jerry Brewer, MD, a Mayo Clinic dermatologist.
Using records from the Rochester Epidemiology Project, a decades-long database of all patient care in Olmsted County, MN, researchers conducted a population-based study. Patients aged 18 to 39 between 1970 and 2009 with a first-time diagnoses of melanoma were investigated. Study results showed the incidence of melanoma increased eightfold among young women and fourfold among young men.
Scientists reason that the use of indoor tanning beds is a key to the increasing cancer rate in young women. “A recent study reported that people who use indoor tanning beds frequently are 74% more likely to develop melanoma, and we know young women are more likely to use them than young men,” Brewer says. “The results of this study emphasize the importance of active interventions to decrease risk factors for skin cancer and, in particular, to continue to alert young women that indoor tanning has carcinogenic effects that increase the risk of melanoma,” he adds.
Source: Mayo Clinic.
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