Solarium increases skin cancer in areas where the sun’s UV light does not normally reach

Solarium use for tanning the skin has already been linked to the fact that the risk of melanoma, i.e. dark cell cancer, can increase almost threefold.

Now, researchers have shown for the first time how tanning acquired in a solarium can cause damage to DNA, i.e. the human inheritance, on the entire surface of the skin.

Due to the solarium, cell damage can also occur in places where the tan produced by ordinary sunlight usually does not reach.

These areas include, for example, the lower back and buttocks.

“We found changes in the normal skin DNA of patients who use solariums, which are precursors of melanoma,” says the first author of the study, Dr. Pedram Gerami.

Gerami is a professor of skin cancer research at Northwestern University in Chicago, its Feinberg School of Medicine.

Gerami has treated skin cancer patients for over 20 years.

While studying skin cancer, Gerami recorded an unusual number of women under the age of 50 who had suffered from melanoma several times.

He suspected that it was the use of the solarium that connected these cases. He started researching the matter and established two different age groups for comparison.

Patients one group included 2,932 patients. They used the solarium a lot.

The second group consisted of 2,925 patients selected randomly, but by age group. They had not been exposed to ultraviolet radiation from a solarium.

The age, gender and possible cancer risk of the subjects are suitable for comparison.

Gerami also collected cell samples, which he used to evaluate skin changes. The researchers sequenced the DNA of 82 individual melanocytes.

A melanocyte is a special cell that produces melanin, the pigment of the skin, hair and eyes. It protects the skin from the sun’s UV radiation. The cells are located at the base of the epidermis of the skin.

Melanoma is the most serious of skin cancers. It is the most common cancer. Melanomas often start as darkened moles.

Geramin the group found that the skin cells of tanning bed users had almost twice as many mutations as the cells of the control group.

This supported the idea that tanning beds may cause more extensive DNA damage than exposure to the sun’s UV radiation alone.

Geram’s group found out what patterns of skin cell mutations the solarium users had. The skin cells were compared to the skin cells of people who were exposed only to natural light when tanning.

In solarium users, melanoma also occurred in those areas of the body that receive less sunlight than usual.

“Those areas of the body that typically have little cell damage caused by the sun are exposed in tanning beds,” the authors state.

Melanoma country was found in 5.1 percent of solarium users. Others had it at 2.1 percent.

Even if age, sex, and a person’s family history were taken into account, the use of a solarium was still associated with a 2.85-fold risk of developing melanoma.

The World Health Organization WHO classifies solariums as dangerous. Their cancer-causing risk is equivalent to cigarette smoke or asbestos.

The results were reported by Northwestern Medical School and the University of California, San Francisco.

The science journal Science Advances reported on the study.