Utah is among the top 10 states in the nation when it comes to high skin cancer rates -- and health officials are urging people to take every precaution to keep their skin safe.
"Utah's predominantly fair-complexioned population and common outdoor lifestyle combine to put Utahns at risk for skin cancer," said Dr. Jack Lyons, a dermatologist at the Ogden Clinic.
"Unfortunately, it seems that many young people still believe that a tan looks healthy rather than recognizing that it is the precursor to unattractive wrinkles, irregular pigmentation and skin cancer."
Every year, nearly 24 of every 100,000 people in Weber County are diagnosed with skin cancer, according to the Weber-Morgan Health Department. Davis County's rate is approximately 31 per 100,000 people. The national rate is 20.1.
According to the Utah Department of Health, the incidence of melanoma has been increasing for the past 30 years.
In addition, melanoma is the second most common form of cancer (behind Hodgkin's lymphoma) for adolescents and young adults age 15 to 29.
Not only do people expose themselves to too much sun -- killing or damaging healthy cells by the time they are tan -- they also use tanning beds as a way to get a "healthy" glow, Lyons said.
Tanning beds
According to the World Health Organization, tanning beds deliver ultraviolet light, a known cause of cancer, and the agency has moved tanning beds to its highest cancer risk category. A 10 percent tax on tanning-related services was passed as part of health-care reform and goes into effect on Thursday.
Ogden dermatologist Jason Hadley said teenagers seem to be the hardest to convince when it comes to the dangers of sun exposure.
"Simply put, ultraviolet light in all of its forms causes cancer-inducing mutations in the skin," Hadley said. "The evidence supporting the cancer-causing potential of ultraviolet light is so overwhelming that the World Health Organization lists tanning beds as carcinogenic as asbestos and tobacco."
Also, getting a tan at a tanning salon before a vacation offers virtually no protection against a burn, Hadley said.
"One tanning bed exposure before the age of 18 increases risk of melanoma 75-fold," he said. "Many young women still ignore the overwhelming evidence supporting the damaging effects of ultraviolet radiation. It's tough to convince high school kids that a tan simply is not worth it. It's difficult to convince a teenager to avoid tanning when the consequence of their actions can be delayed by decades."
According to a recent report in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, use of indoor tanning beds increases the risk of melanoma between twofold and fourfold, depending on the device and length of time used.
"It had been previously thought that those tanning with UVB rather than UVA, radiation would be at increased risk for melanoma. Our study shows that there is no such thing as a safe device," said lead author DeAnn Lazovich, associate professor of epidemiology and community health in the School of Public Health and Masonic Cancer Center at the University of Minnesota.
Risk personified
Lyons, a melanoma cancer survivor himself, said his patients over 40 to 45 years of age are fairly good about protecting themselves from excessive sun exposure.
But: "I think there is still a lot of room for improvement in sun protection practices for people younger than 30 or 40 in the Ogden area," Lyons said.
Electra Paskett, one of the researchers and associate director for population sciences at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, said many teenagers tend to live a life ignorant of the risks.
"They believe because they are not old, they will never be old. We need to encourage a shift in social norms about tanning similar to what was done with smoking because the risk is that high," she said.
Glen Kinney, epidemiologist with the Weber-Morgan Health Department, said tanning is a learned behavior.
"It's a behavior that needs to be unlearned," he said. "People need to know that overexposure to the sun is hazardous to their health. Teenagers, especially, need to pay attention to the dangers of the sun."
"We had two speakers at the Utah State Public Health Conference this year. Both were young ladies who had melanoma. One lady was from Alaska and her parents owned tanning salons, so she started tanning when she was pretty young. By the time she was 30, she had melanoma," Kinney said.
The other girl moved to Utah from Oregon, Kinney said. A redhead with fair skin, she, too, was suffering from the deadly form of skin cancer.
"Melanoma of the skin is almost always preventable just by staying out of the sun and using adequate sunscreen," Kinney said. "Once you get melanoma, your five-year survival rate is very poor."
A survivor's story
Rex Bean, 80, of South Ogden, is a melanoma survivor. An avid skier, Bean spent plenty of winters outdoors, often coming home from the ski slopes with a sunburned face.
"I'm fairly light-skinned so it was hard for me to get a tan as I grew up," Bean said. "After about the age of 40, I started having skin cancer problems -- mostly basal cancer that the doctor would remove, but I've really been scarred from the doc taking out those cells."
About 12 years ago, Bean noticed a pinpoint black dot on his neck. He went to Lyons, who removed it and diagnosed melanoma. Six years later, a lump inside his neck revealed melanoma again - this time stage IV, the most severe.
"It had metastasized to my lung and I had to have a portion removed," Bean said. "The oncologist said people with this only live about a year, but there was a clinical trial going on, so I got in on it."
Bean said he was doing well in the trial for three years, when it was canceled.
"I was devastated," Bean said. "I thought I had beaten the odds with this clinical trial, but come to find out, I was on a placebo for those three years."
Bean said he isn't sure why his cancer went into remission, but he credits good surgeons and having a great attitude.
"Attitude is a lot of it, but I would advise people to keep the sunscreen on every time they go outside," he said. "And stay away from the tanning beds. They should be outlawed."
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