Australian coastal and river dwellers at risk of melanoma
June 25, 2009
Living by the coast in South Australia increases your risk of melanoma by 41%. Photo by Veneta Simeonova
(PhysOrg.com) -- South Australians living on the coast, near the River Murray and in metropolitan Adelaide are more likely to get skin cancer than their inland cousins.
Researchers from the University of Adelaide and SA Department of Health say data collected over a 20-year period from 1985-2004 shows that coastal dwellers in particular are 41% more likely to be diagnosed with melanoma.
People living close to the river also have a 19% greater chance of contracting skin cancer compared to residents living in regional and remote parts of South Australia.
Melanoma specialist Associate Professor Brendon Coventry from the University of Adelaide's Discipline of Surgery says the results indicate that people who live near the coast or River Murray are more exposed to the sun over their lifetime.
The coastal effect may also be explained by greater physical activity outdoors, according to a previous study.
"There is a large elderly population in coastal South Australia and it is important we target melanoma prevention and acute care programs to these areas," Associate Professor Coventry says. "We still have a significant problem with diagnosing melanoma early enough in older men, which could be improved."
Associate Professor Coventry and SA Health colleagues Adrian Heard and Bridget Milanowski analysed melanoma statistics from metropolitan Adelaide and 11 regional centres in South Australia.
"While there was a significant risk in contracting skin cancer for residents living on the coast or near the river, the data wasn't strong enough to show a real difference in melanoma death rates compared to people living inland," Associate Professor Coventry says.
Facts and figures about skin cancer:
• According to Cancer Council Australia, two in three Australians will be diagnosed with skin cancer by the time they are 70 years of age;
• More than 9000 people are treated for melanoma in Australia each year, of which approximately 1200 die;
• GPs in Australia have over 1 million patient consultations per year for skin cancer;
• Melanoma is the most common cancer in people aged between 15-44 years;
• Australia has one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world, at nearly four times the rates in Canada, the US and the UK.
-
Older Australians at risk of sun-related skin cancer death
Apr 14, 2008 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Inherited melanoma risk: What you do know does help you
Jun 17, 2008 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Does too much sun cause melanoma?
Jul 23, 2008 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Family history of melanoma linked to Parkinson's disease
Feb 16, 2009 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Survival rates appear lower for scalp and neck melanoma than for other sites
Apr 21, 2008 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
Feb 01, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (31) |
30
-
Something old, something new: Evolution and the structural divergence of duplicate genes
Jan 31, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (7) |
1
-
The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers
Jan 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
1
-
Stock market network reveals investor clustering
Jan 27, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (23) |
8
-
Of microchemistry and molecules: Electronic microfluidic device synthesizes biocompatible probes
Jan 26, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
-
Is Everyday Technology Killing Us?
Feb 08, 2012
-
Exercise and weight loss
Feb 08, 2012
-
Why do we have head aches? Our brains can't feel anything.
Feb 07, 2012
-
"The end of diseases" by David Agus, interview from Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Feb 04, 2012
-
Oncolytic adenovirus
Feb 04, 2012
-
Nutrition label stuffs and diets
Feb 02, 2012
- More from Physics Forums - Medical Sciences
More news stories
Complex wiring of the nervous system may rely on a just a handful of genes and proteins
Researchers at the Salk Institute have discovered a startling feature of early brain development that helps to explain how complex neuron wiring patterns are programmed using just a handful of critical genes. ...
11 hours ago |
4.9 / 5 (9) |
1
|
Team isolates nerve cells involved in storing long term memory and gene proteins associated with them
(Medical Xpress) -- A research team in Taiwan has succeeded in isolating two nerve cells in fruit fly brains that are believed to be the major players in allowing for the formation of long term memories. Furthermore, ...
Seeing colors in music, tasting flavors in shapes may happen in life's early months
Famed violinist Itzhak Perlman sees a deep forest green whenever he plays a B-flat on his Stradivarius' G string. The A on the E string is red.
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
18 hours ago |
4.5 / 5 (2) |
2
|
Both maternal and paternal age linked to autism
Older maternal and paternal age are jointly associated with having a child with autism, according to a recently published study led by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
15 hours ago |
4.3 / 5 (3) |
0
|
New understanding of DNA repair could eventually lead to cancer therapy
A research group in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta is hoping its latest discovery could one day be used to develop new therapies that target certain types of cancers.
14 hours ago |
4.8 / 5 (6) |
0
|
Anonymous knocks CIA website offline (Update)
The website of the Central Intelligence Agency was inaccessible on Friday after the hacker group Anonymous claimed to have knocked it offline.
New error-correcting codes guarantee the fastest possible rate of data transmission
Error-correcting codes are one of the triumphs of the digital age. Theyre a way of encoding information so that it can be transmitted across a communication channel such as an optical fiber o ...
Google users warned of threat to smartphone wallets
Users of Google smartphone wallets were being warned on Friday that there is a way to crack pass codes intended to thwart thieves from going on illicit shopping sprees.
Humans may have helped the decline of African rainforests 3000 years ago
(PhysOrg.com) -- Large areas of rainforests in Central Africa mysteriously disappeared over three thousand years ago, to be replaced by savannas. The prevailing theory has been that the cause was a change ...
New power source discovered
(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and RMIT University have made a breakthrough in energy storage and power generation.
Small modular reactor design could be a 'SUPERSTAR'
(PhysOrg.com) -- Though most of today's nuclear reactors are cooled by water, we've long known that there are alternatives; in fact, the world's first nuclear-powered electricity in 1951 came from a reactor ...