More Evidence Links Tanning Beds to Higher Skin Cancer Risk

Roughly 10 percent of Americans continue to use indoor tanning beds, but new research suggests that doing so increases their risk for three common skin cancers, including basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma.

In conducting the study, researchers tracked the tanning bed use of more than 73,000 nurses — first during high school and college, and then when the women were between 25 and 35 years of age.

The study found that tanning beds increased skin cancer risk over time, with a “dose-response effect.” That means the more visits to the tanning salon, the higher the woman’s risk for skin cancer.

Compared with women who didn’t use tanning beds, the risk for basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma jumped 15 percent for every four visits to an indoor tanning bed each year. The risk for melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, also increased by 11 percent.

Exposure in youth seemed most hazardous. “Use during high school/college had a stronger effect on the increased risk for basal cell carcinoma compared with use during ages 25 to 35,” noted study author Dr. Mingfeng Zhang, a research fellow in the department of dermatology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston in a news release.

Numerous studies conducted over the past few years have shown strong associations between tanning bed use and skin cancer. In March of 2010, a advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended a ban on indoor tanning by minors, and last February the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement supporting such a ban.

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Tagged basal cell carcinoma, melanoma, skin cancer, squamous cell carcinoma, tanning bed