Factors Predict Skin Cancer, Study Finds
Published: March 27, 1990
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla., March 26— People having at least one of six characteristics run a higher than normal risk of getting the most deadly form of skin cancer, a new study suggests.
Because that deadly skin cancer, melanoma, is highly curable in its early stages and because it is relatively easy to identify the most susceptible people, ''no one should die from melanoma,'' said Darrell Rigel, a researcher at New York University.
Melanoma is expected to kill 6,300 Americans this year, according to the American Cancer Society. Some 27,600 new cases of melanoma, which is caused chiefly by excessive exposure to the sun, are expected this year.
Mr. Rigel described the new study Sunday at a conference sponsored by the cancer society. The work included data from 200 people with or without melanoma, and considered 43 possible factors that might have been found to contribute to the disease.
Hair Color Is Risk Factor
Six factors appeared to raise the risk of melanoma: blond or red hair; marked freckling of the upper back; the presence of rough red bumps on the skin called actinic keratoses, which come from sun exposure; a history of other family members with melanoma; a history of three or more blistering sunburns in the teen-age years, and having spent three or more years at an outdoor summer job as a teen-ager.
Having any one or two of these factors increases a person's chance of developing melanoma by three to four times. The combination of three or more factors gave an increase of 20 to 25 times, Mr. Rigel said.
The over all risk of getting melanoma for Americans is estimated to be about one in 120, he said. It was one in 250 in 1980 and is forecast to be one in 90 in the year 2000, he said. Scientists blame much of the trend on increases in the time people spend on the beach.
Because melanoma takes 10 to 20 years to appear after damage from the sun, Mr. Rigel said, the behavior of people in the 1960's and 1970's has only recently begun to show up in melanoma rates.
Lawrence Garfinkel, the cancer society's vice president for epidemiology and statistics, said previous research gives good evidence to support the conclusions of Mr. Rigel's study of risk factors.