Indoor Tanning Linked To Melanoma

Filed in archive Cancer , Consumer Alert , Studies on June 1, 2010

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Among females in the United States, indoor tanning is more prevalent than smoking cigarettes.

The University of Minnesota's School of Public Health and the Masonic Cancer center announce the first study to definitively link indoor tanning to skin cancer, specifically melanoma.

The 2,300 study participants helped researcher DeAnn Lazovich to conclude:

• The risk of melanoma is 74 percent higher for someone who uses indoor tanning compared to people who don't


• Those who tan indoors often (defined by 50 plus hours, more than 100 sessions, or for 10-plus years) were 2.5 to 3 times more likely to develop melanoma than people who never tanned indoors.

The study highlighted that it didn't matter the type of tanning device used. There is no safe tanning device. Also, the risk of getting melanoma is associated more with how much a person tans and not the age at which a person starts using tanning devices.