A Quarter Of Melanoma Survivors Don't Wear Sunscreen, Study Finds

Recently at an American Association for Cancer Research conference, Anees B. Chagpar, associate professor of surgery at Yale School of Medicine, said that it "blew my mind" when her research showed more than a quarter of melanoma survivors do not use sunscreen when outdoors for more than an hour and that a small portion of the skin cancer survivors still visited the tanning bed.

Melanoma is the least common type of skin cancer, but its ability to spread quickly if untreated also makes it deadliest skin cancer, taking the lives of 9,500 of the nearly 77,000 Americans it strikes each year.

"It is certainly concerning that a quarter of the melanoma survivors never wear sunscreen," said Dr. Hensin Tsao, a melanoma expert at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who was not involved in the study, according to U.S. News and World Report.

The study did show, however, that melanoma survivors did a better job of protecting themselves against the sun than the general public. .

Of more than 27,000 adults surveyed, 171 had a prior history of melanoma. Compared to the general public, melanoma survivors were more likely to stay in the shade, wear a hat and long sleeves and apply sunscreen.

But of the survey respondents with a history of melanoma, 15 percent reported rarely or never staying in the shade, 27 percent reported never wearing sunscreen when outside for more than an hour and two percent reported having used a tanning bed in the past year.

"We now know that a significant proportion of melanoma survivors still could be doing better. This study speaks to what we could do to educate melanoma survivors on how to prevent recurrence," Chagpar said. 

The results also suggest a need for more education on sun protection in the general public Only 17 percent of American report always using sunscreen when going outside in the sun for more than an hour, and nearly six percent of the general public still uses tanning beds.