A Calgary-based study looking at the connection between indoor tanning and skin cancer has made some interesting findings but all of the doctors involved in the research agree that indoor tanning beds are unsafe.
Dr. Tina Cheng, an oncologist with the University of Calgary, treats a lot of patients with melanoma and a number of other skin cancers.
She says they started the study because they noticed a lot of their patients who had developed melanoma had used indoor tanning in the past.
“We wanted to see what proportion of patients used indoor tanning in the melanoma population. No one has looked before. We also wanted to see the pattern of use; for how many years, when did they start [and] how many sessions.”
Dr. Cheng says they also wanted to see if there was any difference between the cases of melanoma in patients who had used indoor tanning and those who hadn’t.
“The key findings are patients who have had indoor tanning exposure in life, it can be just one session or for a number of years, in that group, the melanoma diagnosis is much earlier.”
Dr. Cheng says the study also found the indoor tanning procedure also has a higher chance for genetic mutations that can lead to melanoma.
“That is helping us to understand how indoor tanning may contribute to melanoma development at a molecular pathway level.”
The first time that melanoma was mentioned to Michael Gilbert, one of Dr. Cheng’s patients, was back in 2013.
“It becomes a little more serious at that point,” he says.
He’s convinced that UV exposure was the cause.
“I’ve had a lot of sun exposure in my life. I’ve had a lot of skin lesions and that sort of thing removed because of sun damage so there’s definitely a correlation there.”
Gilbert, who admits to having spent time in tanning booths to get a ‘base tan’ before going on vacation, says melanoma is a very serious disease.
“I had a piece of skin removed that was biopsied to be melanoma. Within six to eight months it had metastasized and had shown up in my lungs [and] my kidneys; there was a number of places internally where the tumours had shown up in a very short amount of time.”
A regimen of immunotherapy, under Dr. Cheng, has worked to destroy the cancer cells and bring his cancer under control.
He says it’s very difficult to convince people that too much sunshine can actually be harmful to your health.
“There’s a lot of people who still think a lot sun is healthy for you. I run into people all the time who say ‘I’m taking a trip, I’m going south, going to get some Vitamin D; it’s healthy for you.’ I don’t think people associate a really high risk with doing that.”
He considers tanning salons to be “the new smoking.”
“It’s something that’s dangerous and people aren’t fully aware of those risks that they put themselves in when they use tanning beds.”
There are other ways for patients to develop melanoma, but Dr. Cheng says indoor tanning is a “more efficient way” to contract the disease.
“It’s like a highway or expressway to melanoma. If we, in general, consider there are two types of UV-induced melanomas, one is in a much older population with chronic, cumulative sun exposure in the head and neck area that’s always seeing the sun. Then we have the melanoma developed in younger individuals and they don’t have to have as much UV cumulative exposure, they have more intermittent exposed patterns.”
She says the second type of melanoma is also biologically more aggressive and using indoor tanning shortens the time it takes for skin cancer to develop.
“When you are using indoor tanning, you are just increasing the skin cell damage from UV exposure and that can result in mutations in the DNA and the cumulative DNA will increase the risk of developing melanoma.”
Dr. Cheng suggests anyone who has spent some time in an indoor tanning bed when they were younger should understand how to administer a self-examination and get more information from a dermatologist.
In 2018, the Government of Alberta passed the Skin Cancer Prevention (Artificial Tanning) Act, preventing businesses from providing tanning services to anyone under the age of 18. Since that law came into effect, public health inspectors with Alberta Health Services have not charged any businesses or individuals with non-compliance.
(With files from Kevin Green)
