by Wayne Wood
Dr. Darrel Ellis in Dermatology specializes in treating people with melanoma,
the most deadly type of skin cancer. He has seen hundreds of cases. Some of
the patients—most of them, if the disease is caught early, recover and
live their lives chastened into sunscreen use and stylish hats.
Some of them, especially the ones whose disease was caught late, don’t
survive.
And if there is one thing that puzzles him, it’s why people voluntarily
choose to lie down and have their skin bombarded with radiation that increases
their chances of getting this potentially deadly disease. More than a million
people use a tanning bed on an average day in the U.S., and one study cited
by Ellis says there is a seven times greater risk of melanoma among tanning
bed users.
“By far the greatest users are young women,” he says. “At least
half the patients I see have been tanning bed users. That doesn’t mean
they were heavy users, but they used them.”
Melanoma is the most common cancer in young women.
“We’re seeing a huge increase in melanoma in the past 30 years,
but human genetics haven’t changed in that time,” Ellis says. In
2002, there were a total of 54,200 melanoma cases in the U.S., and 7,600 deaths.
It may be that the comparison with cigarettes is appropriate here, in the
sense that some young people are willing to do something they know can potentially
harm their health in the future in order to receive a perceived fashion or
coolness benefit now. In fact, tanning beds have been listed by the National
Institute of Environmental Health Sciences as a known carcinogen.
Some people think tanning bed light is safer than sunlight. In fact, Ellis
says, the composition of the light found in most tanning beds not only raises
the risk for cancer, it actually suppresses the immune system.
“The scary thing is, a survey asked college kids if they were aware that
tanning beds caused cancer as well as aging skin, and about 90 percent said
yes,” Ellis says.
One former tanning bed user who knows the truth of Ellis’ statements
is Heather Hall, an information officer in News and Public Affairs assigned
to the School of Nursing. She was never a heavy user of tanning beds, but
did use them in college.
“Looking back on it now it seems like a dumb mistake,” she says.
“If I knew then what I know now I never would have gone to a tanning
bed.”
Hall, who has red hair and fair skin, was looking for a head start on a tan
before a spring break trip to Panama City, Fla. “I love the sun, it just
doesn’t love me,” she says of her propensity for sunburn. She had
several severe sunburns as a child, another known risk factor for skin cancer.
At the age of 27 she was diagnosed with melanoma. Although she was living
in Pennsylvania at the time, VUMC was involved in her diagnosis. She was a
television reporter working for a syndicator of medical news, and was following
Vanderbilt physicians at a skin cancer screening. During one of the quiet
times, she gestured to a place on her right calf and asked somebody if it
looked like anything to be concerned about.
It did—irregular borders with a raised red bump—and when she returned
home she saw a dermatologist.
“I was scared,” she says of when she was told she had cancer and
it would need to be removed. “I went to the internet and looked up melanoma
information and I was even more scared.”
Hall, who had previously had thyroid cancer, had surgery two weeks later and
was relieved to learn the melanoma had not spread. She now sees a dermatologist
every four months and does self-exams monthly.
“You know your body better than any doctor,” she says. “[Self
exams] are important.”
And she is now convinced of the value of the free screenings that offer full
body checks, including the two held at VUMC in the month of May (see accompanying
article).
“You think, ‘That’s probably nothing,’—but why not
get it checked out?” she says.