Does intermittent sun exposure cause basal cell carcinoma? a case-control study in Western Australia
✍ Scribed by Anne Kricker; Bruce K. Armstrong; Dallas R. English; Peter J. Heenan
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1995
- Tongue
- French
- Weight
- 690 KB
- Volume
- 60
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0020-7136
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Our report deals with the relationship of pattern and timing of sun exposure to basal cell carcinoma (BCC) in a populationbased case-control study conducted in Western Australia in 1988. The main measure of intermittent exposure was based on the amount of exposure on non-working days relative to that over the whole week. Outdoor recreational activities, holidays and sunburn were also considered to be markers of intermittent exposure. We observed a statistically significant increase in risk of BCC with increasing proportion of weekly sun exposure obtained at the weekend, especially in late teenage (OR = 3.9, 95% CI 1.9-7.8 for maximum intermittency of exposure), exposure of the site of skin cancer during holidays (OR = 1.9, 95% CI I. 1-3. I for the highest exposure quarter) and sunburn to the site (ORs of I .8 for 3-I0 and I .5 for I I + sunburns in a lifetime). Risk of BCC increased substantially with increasing intermittency in poor tanners but not at all in good tanners. Our data suggest that a particular amount of sun exposure delivered in infrequent, probably intense increments will increase risk of BCC more than a similar dose delivered more continuously over the same total period of time.