Time to ‘ban sunbeds’ as skin cancer rises

A SURGE in skin cancer cases has prompted a call from a leading dermatologist for tanning beds to be banned.

Professor Caitriona Ryan has warned that even one session on a sunbed can increase the risk of skin cancer by 60%.

She said there had been an exponential rise in cases of melanoma, particularly among young people.

Under the current law, you must be 18 to use a sunbed, but Prof. Ryan believes it is time for an outright ban. She told Newstalk Breakfast there is no safe limit on indoor sunbed use. ‘People often think that using a tanning bed is very similar to going out and sunbathing,’ she said. ‘We don’t want anyone to be out sunbathing either and burning their skin, but a tanning bed is a much more serious source of UVA. It’s the type of UV that creates much more DNA damage.’ She said UVA leads to mutations on a person’s skin that can increase the risk of skin cancer – particularly the fatal type called melanoma.

‘The rates [of melanoma] have doubled over the last decade – they’re over 1,000 a year,’ she said. ‘The issue with the melanoma is if it’s caught early, it can be cut out and people can do well. If it has travelled further into the lymph nodes and elsewhere, it can often be fatal.’

She added: ‘It’s a disease of younger people and we’ve seen an exponential rise in it. We think it’s because of the huge amount of sunbed use that went on in the ’80s and ’90s. We see a huge impact now.

‘Even one session on a sunbed increases your risk of melanoma by 60%.’

Prof. Ryan said the use of fake tan has helped in reducing the widespread use of sunbeds. ‘People who would’ve gone to use a sunbed to keep their tan topped up are now using fake tan instead,’ she said. However, she said there has been a rise in men using tanning beds. ‘They all want to have this tan,’ she said.

According to the Irish Cancer Society, non-melanoma skin cancer is the most common cancer in Ireland. Almost 10,000 people are diagnosed with it each year.

The main risk factor for developing nonmelanoma skin cancer is ultraviolet (UV) light from sun exposure. This cancer can usually be treated easily by removing the area of abnormal skin, and it rarely spreads to other parts of the body.

‘Even one session increases risk by 60%’