A Cancer Research UK study found that people using sun beds or sun lamps more than doubled their risk of developing squamous cell carcinoma. They also increased their risk of developing basal cell carcinoma by 50%.

Squamous and basal cell carcinomas are common, milder forms of full blown skin cancer melanoma. Squamous carcinomas can spread to other parts of the body, potentially fatal, whilst basal cell carcinomas can leave unsightly ulcers.

Sunbed/sunlamp users further increased their risk by 20% (squamous) and 10% (basal) for every ten years of indoors tanning.

A letter to the BMJ warned that sunbeds might cause eye cancer (intra-ocular malignant melanoma) as well as skin cancer. The three case controlled studies quoted suggested that using a sun lamp might increase the risk of eye cancer between twofold and fourfold.

People persist in using sunbeds despite the wide publicity for recent research findings that using sunbeds is as or more dangerous than sunbathing. In the UK we still buy 50,000 sunbeds annually. The highest users (25%) are 16-24 year olds.

Brighton consultant dermatologist Margaret Price warns that repeated exposure to UVA can suppress the immune system, reactivate dormant viruses and predispose to cancer in later life.

Ed.- Because UVA was thought to be safer, UVA sunbeds replaced UVB beds in the 1980s. Sunbed UVA has to be 100 - 1000 times stronger than it is in natural sunlight to create a tan.

Describing the case of a patient who developed several skin cancers after using a tanning bed 30 minutes each side once a week, Drs Lever and Lawrence advised their colleagues to strongly discourage the use of tanning beds (Lever,LR & Lawrence,CM. New England Journal of Medicine 1995;332:21,1451).