Teens not learning lesson from mom’s skin cancer

Teenagers whose mothers have been diagnosed with skin cancer are not much more likely than their peers to protect themselves effectively from the sun, a new study shows.

Having a parent with skin cancer increases a person’s own risk of the disease, Alan C. Geller of the Boston University School of Medicine and colleagues note in the medical journal of Pediatrics.

For the more-treatable basal cell and squamous cell cancers, risk is at least doubled, while having a family history of melanoma, the most deadly type of skin cancer, increases risk from two- to eight-fold. This means effective sun protection is even more important for individuals with a family history of skin cancer, Geller and his team write.

To investigate the sun protection practices of children of mothers diagnosed with skin cancer or who had a family history of melanoma, the researchers surveyed 9,943 sons and daughters of women participating in the Nurses Health Study II. The adolescents ranged in age from 12 to 17. The mothers of 463 had been diagnosed with skin cancer, while 783 participants’ mothers had a family history of melanoma.

Forty-two percent of adolescents whose mothers had skin cancer used sunscreen, compared to 33% of teens whose mothers had a family history of melanoma and 34% of those whose mother had no personal or family skin cancer history.

But children of mothers with skin cancer were actually slightly more likely than their peers to have gotten three or more sunburns during the past summer—which could have been because these teens tended to be more fair-skinned, Geller and his colleagues note.

There was no significant difference among the three groups in tanning bed use; about one in ten teens overall reported having used a tanning bed at least once in the past year.

Just one in four of the adolescents surveyed said they thought that untanned skin was the most attractive-looking, and another one in four said it was worth a sunburn to get a tan. These percentages were the same in all three groups.

The findings, Geller told Reuters Health, show that it’s essential for parents who have been diagnosed with skin cancer to convey to their children the importance of sun protection. “They need to be aware of the fact that there’s risk for their kids and they need to be much more vigilant” about sun protection practices, he said.

Geller points to one “encouraging” finding from the study: children of mothers who had been diagnosed within the past two years were more likely to use sunscreen and less likely to have gotten frequent sunburns or used tanning beds compared to children whose mothers had been diagnosed with the disease more than two years previously.

He said this finding supports the idea that a parent’s skin cancer diagnosis represents a “teachable moment” for raising a child’s awareness of the importance of sun protection.

“For the offspring of skin cancer patients, this ‘moment’ needs to be extended and the message needs to be addressed and then readdressed, especially if one is to prevail against the current trend among adolescents to seek out more and more tanning opportunities as they age,” Geller and his team conclude.

SOURCE: Pediatrics, April 2006.

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