Tanning salons linked to cancer risk, especially for younger women.

2003 NOV 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Regularly baking to a golden tan under sun lamps can increase the risk of malignant melanoma, a sometimes fatal skin cancer, and the younger a woman starts the greater the risk, a study says.

The study, which analyzed the lifestyles and melanoma risks for women between the ages of 30 and 50, found what the researchers said was the strongest evidence yet that artificial sun tanning can be dangerous to healthy skin.

Melanoma risk is highest among fair-skinned people in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and North America. Since the 1950s, the rate of the skin cancer has tripled in Norway and Sweden, where light skin is common. About 50,000 cases of melanoma are diagnosed annually in the United States and about 7,500 people die of the disease each year, according to the American Academy of Dermatology.

In the study, appearing in the October 15, 2003, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, an international group of researchers analyzed data from the Women's Lifestyle and Health Cohort Study in Norway and Sweden. In 1991 and 1992, 106,379 women completed extensive questionnaires about their exposure to sunlight and to artificial tanning. In 1999, the researchers rechecked the women's cancer status using the national health registries in Norway and Sweden.

The researchers found 187 cases of malignant melanoma diagnosed among the study group during the 8-year follow-up period. They found that women of any age or hair color who regularly visited tanning salons once or more per month increased their chance of developing melanoma by 55%.

The risk was highest for young adults. Compared with women who never used a solarium, women who reported using artificial tanning systems once or more per month when they were between the ages of 20 and 29 increased their risk of melanoma by about 150%.

"Our results provide stronger evidence than those of other studies that solarium use is associated with an increased risk of melanoma," the authors of the study wrote.