Affiliations of authors: M. B. Veierød, Section of Medical Statistics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; E. Weiderpass, Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, and International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France; M. Thörn, Department of Surgery, South Stockholm General Hospital, Stockholm; J. Hansson, Department of Oncology and Pathology, Karolinska Institutet; E. Lund, Institute of Community Medicine, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway; B. Armstrong, School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia; H.-O. Adami, Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, and Department of Epidemiology, Harvard University, Boston, MA.
Correspondence to: Marit B. Veierød, PhD, Section of Medical Statistics, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1122 Blindern, N-0317 Oslo, Norway (e-mail: marit.veierod{at}basalmed.uio.no).
![]() |
ABSTRACT |
---|
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
---|
![]() |
INTRODUCTION |
---|
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
---|
Although sun exposure is the major established risk factor for melanoma (4,5), geographic differences in melanoma incidence cannot be attributed solely to differences in the intensity of solar exposure. Within Europe, for example, the incidence of melanoma is higher at northern latitudes, which generally have lower solar intensities, than at southern latitudes, which generally have higher solar intensities (2), although in both Norway and Sweden, an inverse relationship between melanoma incidence and latitude has been noted (6,7). Hence, the effect of UV light on melanoma risk may be strongly modified by other factors, such as differences in sun sensitivity and the nature of the exposure to the sun (8).
A number of studies have examined factors that influence the association between sun exposure and the risk of melanoma. An intermittent pattern of sun exposure, which is typically assessed by measures of sun-intensive activities, such as outdoor recreation or vacations, is associated with increased risk of melanoma (9). In addition, many studies (4,5,9,10) have reported that sunburn, which is an indicator of an intermittent pattern of sun exposure, is positively associated with the risk of melanoma. Results of many studies have suggested that childhood is a critical period for sun exposure (9), and ecologic studies have shown more consistent associations than casecontrol studies between childhood sun exposure and melanoma risk (11). Host factors such as eye color, hair color, skin color, the number of nevi, and skin reaction to chronic and acute sun exposure have also been associated with the risk of melanoma (4,12).
Most of what is known about the association between sun exposure and melanoma risk comes from results of casecontrol studies. The Nurses Health Study is, as far as we know, the only cohort study to examine the association between sun exposure and malignant melanoma; however, a casecontrol design within the cohort was used in these analyses (13,14). Casecontrol studies are limited by the potential for differential bias in recall of sun exposure between case patients and control subjects (15,16). Prospective cohort studies can overcome such limitations because the exposure information is collected prior to disease occurrence. Here we report the first results from the NorwegianSwedish Womens Lifestyle and Health Cohort Study, which was initiated in 1991. This study is the first prospective cohort study, to our knowledge, to examine the associations between pigmentation factors and sun exposure and the risk of malignant melanoma.
![]() |
SUBJECTS AND METHODS |
---|
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
---|
For practical reasons, women were enrolled in the NorwegianSwedish Womens Lifestyle and Health Cohort Study in both 1991 and 1992. In Norway, a nationwide random sample of 100 000 women who were born between 1943 and 1957 (i.e., aged 3449 years at inclusion) was drawn from the National Population Register at Statistics Norway (Oslo, Norway). In Sweden, a random sample of 96 000 women who were born between 1943 and 1962 (i.e., aged 3050 years at inclusion) and were residing in the Uppsala Health Care Region (which comprises about one-sixth of the Swedish population) was drawn from the National Population Register at Statistics Sweden (Stockholm, Sweden).
All women received a letter inviting them to participate in the study. The letter also requested that they provide written informed consent and contained a comprehensive questionnaire that was to be completed and returned in a prepaid envelope. Identical questions relevant to the analysis presented here were included in the questionnaires sent to women in the two countries. The study was approved by the Data Inspection Boards in both countries and by the regional Ethical Committees, and all women gave written informed consent to participate.
Host Factors and Exposure Information
In the questionnaires, study participants were asked to categorize their natural hair color (dark brown/black, brown, blond, or red) and their eye color (brown, gray/green, or blue) and to categorize the number of asymmetric nevi larger than 5 mm on their legs from toes to groin (0, 1, 23, 46, 712, 1324, or 25 nevi). A brochure that was included with the questionnaire provided color pictures with three examples of asymmetric nevi.
Participants recorded their sun sensitivity according to their reactions to both acute and chronic exposure to the sun. Regarding acute sun exposure, the questionnaire asked the women to choose from among four categories to describe how their skin reacts to heavy sun exposure at the beginning of the summer: the skin turns brown without first becoming red, the skin turns red, the skin turns red with pain, or the skin turns red with pain and blisters. The women were asked to describe how their skin reacts to long-lasting or chronic sun exposure according to four categories: the skin turns deep brown, brown, or light brown, or the skin never turns brown.
Participants were asked to report their histories of sunburn and sunbathing vacations and on the frequency of their use of a solarium (i.e., a sun bed or a sunlamp that emits artificial UV light) when they were aged 1019, 2029, 3039, or 4049 years. For each age period, the participant was asked to report the number of times per year she had been burned by the sun so severely that it resulted in pain or blisters that subsequently peeled by choosing from among five categories: never, one time per year at most, two or three times per year, four or five times per year, or six or more times per year. Participants reported the average number of weeks per year spent on sunbathing vacations in southern latitudes (typically southern Europe, e.g., Spain or Greece) or within Norway or Sweden for each age period by choosing from among five categories: never, 1 week per year, 23 weeks per year, 46 weeks per year, or 7 weeks per year. Participants reported their average use of a solarium during each age period by choosing from among six categories: never, rarely, one time per month, two times per month, three or four times per month, or more than one time per week. The questionnaires also contained questions about the participants current height and weight, current and past contraceptive use, reproductive history, prevalent diseases, and lifestyle.
Follow-up and Endpoints
Start of follow-up was defined as the date of receipt of the returned questionnaire. Person-years were calculated from the start of follow-up to the date of diagnosis of primary melanoma, to the date of emigration or death, or to the end of follow-up (December 31, 1999), whichever occurred first. Each resident of Norway and Sweden is assigned a unique national registration number that includes the persons date of birth; those registration numbers are entered into the nationwide databases that were used in this study. By linkage of cohort data to the national cancer registries in Norway and Sweden, this national registration number allowed us to identify cancer cases. Information on death and emigration was gathered by linkage to Statistics Norway and Statistics Sweden.
A total of 57 584 (57.6%) of the Norwegian women and 49 259 (51.3%) of the Swedish women returned completed questionnaires; the overall response rate was 54.5%. We excluded four women because of the lack of vital status information in the available register files, 18 women who had emigrated or died before the start of follow-up, 198 women who did not adequately answer the questions regarding sun exposure or personal characteristics (i.e., sun sensitivity of skin, hair color, eye color, and number of asymmetric nevi), and 244 women who were diagnosed with melanoma prior to the start of follow-up.
Statistical Analysis
Participants geographic regions of residence were defined according to four categories: the southern region of Norway, the middle region of Norway, the northern region of Norway, and the Uppsala Health Care Region in Sweden. The latitudes of the population center of mass within each Norwegian county, which were provided by the Norwegian Mapping Authority, together with the observed number of melanoma cases in those counties, formed the basis for our definitions of the three Norwegian regions. The southern region of Norway includes Vest-Agder, Aust-Agder, Rogaland, Vestfold, Østfold, and Telemark counties, with population centers of mass located at 58°24'59°31' N; the middle region of Norway includes Oslo, Akershus, Buskerud, Hordaland, Oppland, Hedmark, and Sogn og Fjordane counties, with population centers of mass located at 59°58'61°30' N; the northern region of Norway includes Møre og Romsdal, Sør-Trøndelag, Nord-Trøndelag, Nordland, Troms, and Finnmark counties, with population centers of mass located at 62°44'70°22' N. The Uppsala Health Care Region in Sweden has the population center of mass located at 59°86' N. Body surface area was calculated according to the formula (17) weight0.425 x height0.725 x 71.84 and categorized by quartiles. We combined the upper two categories of the variables concerning acute and chronic exposures to sun because of the small numbers in each category and analyzed nevus counts in three categories: 0, 1, 26, and 7 (only two categories, 0 and
1, were used when testing interaction effects). In the age periodspecific analyses of sunburns, sunbathing vacations, and solarium use, we combined the upper categories of these variables because of small numbers. For each of the variables (sunburns, sunbathing vacations, and solarium use), new variables were constructed to combine the exposure during the three age periods that were recorded for all women (i.e., 1019, 2029, 3039 years).
We used Poisson regression analysis to estimate the association between sun exposure or personal characteristics and the risk of melanoma. The statistical significance of independent variables and interaction effects was tested by using the likelihood ratio test. We tested for trends across categories of variables by assigning equally spaced values (e.g., 1, 2, 3, or 4) to the categories and treating the variables as continuous variables in the Poisson regression analysis. All analyses were adjusted for attained age (i.e., age at study entry plus the duration of follow-up), which was categorized by 5-year intervals (for analyses of women aged 40 years or older, we used only two age categories, <50 years and 5060 years), and all multivariable models also included geographic region of residence. The analyses of personal characteristics included mutual adjustments for statistically significant variables. The multivariable models used in the analyses of sunburn, sunbathing vacations, and use of a solarium included hair color. In addition, each age-specific model for use of a solarium included the corresponding numbers of age-specific sunburns and sunbathing vacations. Results are presented as relative risks (RRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). All P values are two-sided, and a 5% level of statistical significance was used.
![]() |
RESULTS |
---|
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
---|
|
|
|
|
|
![]() |
DISCUSSION |
---|
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
---|
The incidence of melanoma observed in our study was higher among the Norwegian women than among the Swedish women. The crude incidence rates of melanoma, which we calculated from the data presented in Table 1, were 25.8 cases per 100 000 person-years of follow-up for the Norwegian women and 16.6 cases per 100 000 person-years of follow-up for the Swedish women. These incidence rates are in accordance with crude incidence rates reported for Norwegian and Swedish women for 1993 through 1997 (23.3 cases per 100 000 person-years for Norwegian women and 17.3 cases per 100 000 person-years for Swedish women) (3). Age-adjusted incidence rates of melanoma have been consistently higher among Norwegian than among Swedish women since the 1960s.
We observed a strong association between hair color and melanoma risk but not between eye color and melanoma risk. These results are consistent with results of a pooled analysis of data derived from published casecontrol studies, in which the reported relative risks were 2.38 (95% CI = 1.90 to 2.97) for individuals who have red hair compared with those who have black or dark brown hair and 1.55 (95% CI = 1.35 to 1.78) for individuals who have blue eyes compared with those who have brown eyes (12). However, the association we observed between cutaneous sensitivity to the sun (i.e., burning or tanning) and melanoma risk was much weaker than that reported in a retrospective Australian study (18). Our findings, that hair color but not eye color was statistically significantly associated with melanoma risk, agree with those of two Danish casecontrol studies (19,20); in addition, the association between melanoma risk and cutaneous sun sensitivity reported in those two studies was also much weaker than that for hair color. A Swedish casecontrol study (21) also found that hair and eye color and skin type were statistically significantly associated with melanoma risk, although the associations were considerably weaker for eye color and skin type than for hair color, whereas an early Norwegian casecontrol study (22) that used hospital-based control subjects found that tolerance to sun exposure, but not hair or eye color, was associated with melanoma risk. We speculate that hair color may be the best measure (combining accuracy of measurement and predictive capacity) of sun sensitivity in homogeneous fair-skinned populations, such as those of Scandinavia. By contrast, reported sun sensitivity may be a less reliable measure of sun sensitivity in these populations because it depends on an individuals experience with repeated and quite heavy sun exposure, which many Scandinavian subjects may not have.
In agreement with the results of several casecontrol studies (2325), the results of our cohort study show that the number of asymmetric nevi larger than 5 mm on the legs was the strongest host risk factor for melanoma. The participants self-reported such nevi on their legs, guided by color pictures of dysplastic nevi in a brochure that was enclosed with the questionnaire. The method we used for this self-reporting has been shown to have limited accuracy for the diagnosis of one or more dysplastic nevi, with an estimated sensitivity of 29% and a specificity of 85% (26). Hence, the relative risk of 5.3 for melanoma in the presence of seven or more large nevi on the legs that we observed in our study may underestimate the excess risk. Increased surveillance and more frequent excision of suspected lesions might, on the other hand, spuriously inflate the risk of melanoma among subjects with asymmetric nevi. However, such an effect seems unlikely because all incident cases were histopathologically confirmed invasive malignant melanomas.
Our results confirm the positive association between past history of sunburn and melanoma reported previously by the majority of casecontrol studies (9,10). Our effect estimates were higher for sunburns that occurred during adolescence than for those that occurred later in life; however, it may be too early to see the full effect of sunburns later in life in our cohort of women. Systematic reviews of casecontrol studies (10,11) have not found evidence of an overall stronger effect of sunburns in early life than in later life. Furthermore, the reported doseresponse gradients of melanoma risk with frequency of sunburn were comparable during childhood and adulthood in a recent large multicenter casecontrol study from Europe (27). However, it is possible that the casecontrol studies have underestimated the effects of sunburn during childhood and adolescence because of high recall error from the very long recall period for most subjects. All of our study subjects were younger than 50 years when they answered the questionnaire, giving a shorter recall period than in many casecontrol studies (9) that include subjects up to 70 years old or older.
Sun exposure during sunbathing vacations is usually intense and intermittent, and results of previous casecontrol studies (10) suggest that there is a positive association between the incidence of melanoma and high levels of intermittent sun exposure. We recorded the number of sunbathing vacations in Norway and Sweden (at latitudes higher than 58° N, where UV levels are low, even in summer) and those in southern latitudes in the same variable, which may explain the lack of a strong association between sunbathing vacations and melanoma in our study. Previous Scandinavian studies show inconsistencies in their results on sunbathing and melanoma risk. One Swedish study (21) and a Danish study (28) found associations between vacations spent in sunny places and melanoma risk, whereas another Swedish study (29) did not.
Our results provide stronger evidence than those of other studies that solarium use is associated with an increased risk of melanoma; we found that overall, regular (i.e., one or more times per month) solarium use at any age was associated with a statistically significant 55% increase in risk of melanoma after adjustment for sun sensitivity and measures of sun exposure. Although other studies (3034) have reported positive associations between melanoma risk and exposure to artificial UV light, these associations often apply to specific subgroups of the study population (e.g. the youngest subjects with melanoma), or they have not been adjusted for possible confounding with sun exposure. A recent review (35) concluded that there was insufficient evidence to determine whether or not tanning lamps cause melanoma. The more consistent and overall statistically significant association between melanoma risk and solarium use observed in our study, which may be due to the relative youth of our cohort, adds substantially to the existing evidence that artificial UV light for recreational tanning increases risk of melanoma.
Our study has several important strengths. First, because all physicians, hospital departments, and histopathologic laboratories in Norway and Sweden are obliged to report malignant diseases to the cancer registries, and the cancer registries match regularly against the death registers at Statistics Norway and Statistics Sweden, respectively, we had a complete follow-up and histopathologic confirmation of all incident cases of melanoma. Second, our study had a prospective design, such that detailed information on host factors and sun exposure was collected prior to melanoma diagnosis. Error in measurement of these factors is inevitable in epidemiologic studies of skin cancer (26,36,37) but can be assumed to be non-differential in the present study. By contrast, measurement error in casecontrol studies may be influenced by a diagnosis of skin cancer and therefore may differ in degree between cases and controls (15,16).
Among the limitations of our study were the comparatively small number of cases, the limited detail about the exposure measurements, and the relatively short follow-up period for solar and artificial UV light exposure during midlife. In addition, we did not adjust for the multiple comparisons made in this study. Instead, we chose to evaluate the individual associations on their own merits and with respect to results from prior studies. Finally, because our cohort included only women, our results may not be generalizable to both sexes. In Norway and Sweden, incidence rates of melanoma tend to be slightly higher among women than among men (3). However, previous casecontrol studies (9) have not focused on whether there are sex differences in the associations between pigmentation characteristics or sun exposure and the risk of melanoma.
The results of our cohort study suggest that public health recommendations for melanoma prevention should include a combination of information on inherent predisposition and the effects of exposure to UV radiation. Hair color and large asymmetric nevi on the legs were the most important host factors associated with risk, and our results for sunburn, sunbathing vacations, and use of a solarium support current recommendations for the avoidance of UV exposure, especially intermittent exposure, either from natural or from artificial sources. Although our study cohort is still too young to fully assess whether UV exposure during adolescence is more critical than UV exposure during adulthood for melanoma risk, there is great potential to explore this question and the important issue of interactions between risk factors in future follow-up studies of these Norwegian and Swedish women.
![]() |
NOTES |
---|
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
---|
![]() |
REFERENCES |
---|
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
---|
1 Parkin MD, Pisani P, Ferlay J. Estimates of the worldwide incidence of 25 major cancers in 1990. Int J Cancer 1999;80:82741.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline]
2 Ferlay J, Bray F, Pisani P, Parkin DM. GLOBOCAN 2000: cancer incidence, mortality and prevalence worldwide. Version 1.0. IARC CancerBase No. 5. Lyon (France): IARC Press; 2001.
3 Møller B, Fekjaer H, Hakulinen, T, Tryggvadóttir L, Storm HH, Talbäck M, et al. Prediction of cancer incidence in the Nordic countries up to the year 2020. Eur J Cancer Prev 2002;11 Suppl 1:S196.[CrossRef]
4 Armstrong BK, English DR. Cutaneous malignant melanoma. In: Schottenfeld D, Fraumeni JF Jr, editors. Cancer epidemiology and prevention. 2nd ed. New York (NY): Oxford University Press; 1996. p. 1282312.
5 Green A, Trichopoulos D. Skin cancer. In: Adami HO, Hunter D, Trichopoulos D. Textbook of cancer epidemiology. New York (NY): Oxford University Press; 2002. p. 281300.
6 Eklund G, Malec E. Sunlight and incidence of cutaneous malignant melanoma. Effect of latitude and domicile in Sweden. Scand J Plast Reconstr Surg 1978;12:23141.[ISI][Medline]
7 Magnus K. Incidence of malignant melanoma of the skin in Norway, 19551970. Variations in time and space and solar radiation. Cancer 1973;32:127586.[ISI][Medline]
8 Armstrong BK. Melanoma of the skin. Br Med Bull 1984;40:34650.[ISI][Medline]
9 International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). IARC monographs on the evaluation of carcinogenic risks in humans. Vol. 55. Solar and ultraviolet radiation. Lyon (France): IARC; 1992.
10 Elwood JM, Jopson J. Melanoma and sun exposure: an overview of published studies. Int J Cancer 1997;73:198203.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline]
11 Whiteman DC, Whiteman CA, Green AC. Childhood sun exposure as a risk factor for melanoma: a systematic review of epidemiologic studies. Cancer Causes Control 2001;12:6982.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline]
12 Bliss JM, Ford D, Swerdlow AJ, Armstrong BK, Cristofolini M, Elwood JM, et al. Risk of cutaneous melanoma associated with pigmentation characteristics and freckling: systematic overview of 10 case-control studies. Int J Cancer 1995;62:36776.[ISI][Medline]
13 Weinstock MA, Colditz GA, Willett WC, Stampfer MJ, Bronstein BR, Mihm MC, et al. Moles and site-specific risk of nonfamilial cutaneous malignant melanoma in women. J Natl Cancer Inst 1989;81:94852.[Abstract]
14 Weinstock MA, Colditz GA, Willett WC, Stampfer MJ, Bronstein BR, Mihm MC, et al. Nonfamilial cutaneous melanoma incidence in women associated with sun exposure before 20 years of age. Pediatrics 1989;84:199204.[Abstract]
15 Weinstock MA, Colditz GA, Willett WC, Stampfer MJ, Rosner B, Speizer FE. Recall (report) bias and reliability in the retrospective assessment of melanoma risk. Am J Epidemiol 1991;133:2405.[Abstract]
16 Cockburn M, Hamilton A, Mack T. Recall bias in self-reported melanoma risk factors. Am J Epidemiol 2001;153:10216.
17 Geigy scientific tables. Vol. 1. Units of measurement, body fluids, composition of the body, nutrition. 8th ed. Basel (Switzerland): Ciba-Geigy; 1981. p. 227.
18 Holman CD, Armstrong BK. Pigmentary traits, ethnic origin, benign nevi, and family history as risk factors for cutaneous malignant melanoma. J Natl Cancer Inst 1984;72:25766.[ISI][Medline]
19 Østerlind A, Tucker MA, Hou-Jensen K, Stone BJ, Engholm G, Jensen OM. The Danish case-control study of cutaneous malignant melanoma. I. Importance of host factors. Int J Cancer 1988;42:2006.[ISI][Medline]
20 Lock-Andersen J, Drzewiecki KT, Wulf HC. Eye and hair colour, skin type and constitutive skin pigmentation as risk factors for basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous malignant melanoma. A Danish case-control study. Acta Derm Venereol 1999;79:7480.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline]
21 Beitner H, Norell SE, Ringborg U, Wennersten G, Mattson B. Malignant melanoma: aetiological importance of individual pigmentation and sun exposure. Br J Dermatol 1990;122:4351.
22 Klepp O, Magnus K. Some environmental and bodily characteristics of melanoma patients. A case-control study. Int J Cancer 1979;23:4826.[ISI][Medline]
23 Augustsson A, Stierner U, Rosdahl I, Suurkula M. Common and dysplastic naevi as risk factors for cutaneous malignant melanoma in a Swedish population. Acta Derm Venereol 1991;71:51824.[ISI][Medline]
24 Tucker MA, Halpern A, Holly EA, Hartge P, Elder DE, Sagebiel RW, et al. Clinically recognized dysplastic nevi. A central risk factor for cutaneous melanoma. JAMA 1997;277:143944.[Abstract]
25 Bataille V, Grulich A, Sasieni P, Swerdlow A, Newton Bishop J, McCarthy W, et al. The association between naevi and melanoma in populations with different levels of sun exposure: a joint case-control study of melanoma in the UK and Australia. Br J Cancer 1998;77:50510.[ISI][Medline]
26 Titus-Ernstoff L, Thorn M, Tosteson TD, Brahme EM, Yuen J, Baron JA, et al. The accuracy of skin self-examination for atypical nevi. Epidemiology 1996;7:61923.[ISI][Medline]
27 Pfahlberg A, Kölmel KF, Gefeller O; FEBIM Study Group. Timing of excessive ultraviolet radiation and melanoma: epidemiology does not support the existence of a critical period of high susceptibility to solar ultraviolet radiation-induced melanoma. Br J Dermatol 2001;144:4715.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline]
28 Østerlind A, Tucker MA, Stone BJ, Jensen OM. The Danish case-control study of cutaneous malignant melanoma. II. Importance of UV-light exposure. Int J Cancer 1988;42:31924.[ISI][Medline]
29 Westerdahl J, Olsson H, Ingvar C. At what age do sunburn episodes play a crucial role for the development of malignant melanoma. Eur J Cancer 1994;30A:164754.
30 Swerdlow AJ, English JS, MacKie RM, ODoherty CJ, Hunter JA, Clark J, et al. Fluorescent lights, ultraviolet lamps, and risk of cutaneous melanoma. BMJ 1988;297:64750.[ISI][Medline]
31 Walter SD, Marrett LD, From L, Hertzman C, Shannon HS, Roy P. The association of cutaneous malignant melanoma with the use of sunbeds and sunlamps. Am J Epidemiol 1990;131:23243.[Abstract]
32 Autier P, Dore JF, Lejeune F, Koelmel KF, Geffeler O, Hille P, et al. Cutaneous malignant melanoma and exposure to sunlamps or sunbeds: an EORTC multicenter case-control study in Belgium, France and Germany. Int J Cancer 1994;58:80913.[ISI][Medline]
33 Westerdahl J, Olsson H, Masback A, Ingvar C, Jonsson N, Brandt L, et al. Use of sunbeds and sunlamps and malignant melanoma in southern Sweden. Am J Epidemiol 1994;140:6919.[Abstract]
34 Westerdahl J, Ingvar C, Måsbäck A, Jonsson N, Olsson H. Risk of cutaneous malignant melanoma in relation to use of sunbeds: further evidence for UV-A carcinogenicity. Br J Cancer 2000;82:15939.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline]
35 Swerdlow AJ, Weinstock MA. Do tanning lamps cause melanoma? An epidemiologic assessment. J Am Acad Dermatol 1998;38:8998.[ISI][Medline]
36 Westerdahl J, Anderson H, Olsson H, Ingvar C. Reproducibility of a self-administered questionnaire for assessment of melanoma risk. Int J Epidemiol 1996;25:24551.[Abstract]
37 English DR, Armstrong BK, Kricker A. Reproducibility of reported measurements of sun exposure in a case-control study. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 1998;7:85763.[Abstract]
Manuscript received February 20, 2003; revised May 20, 2003; accepted August 21, 2003.
This article has been cited by other articles in HighWire Press-hosted journals:
Correspondence about this Article
![]() |
||||
|
Oxford University Press Privacy Policy and Legal Statement |