“I brought these troubles myself”: a woman lost her ear and part of her skull due to addiction to tanning beds
'19.02.2020'
Source: Air force
A fondness for artificial tanning led a resident of England to skin cancer and ear amputation. The fact that the excessively frequent visits to tanning beds is fraught with cancer, the medical community started talking 10 years ago, writes Air force.
Persons under the age of 18 are prohibited from visiting tanning salons in England. However, you can’t forbid adults to do this, and many women in the country have become addicted to cancer with ultraviolet radiation. Compared to the early 1990s, the incidence of skin cancer in Britain has doubled.
Anthea Smith, 44, has gone to a tanning salon every day for many years. “I mostly sunbathed in a horizontal solarium (sunbed - literally translated from English), because in a recumbent solarium, the result is achieved faster,” a resident of Staffordshire told the BBC.
“I had an obsessive addiction: I had to go to sunbathe and be always tanned,” she says.
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When a long-term habit led to cancer, it came as a surprise to Smith. The tumor has spread throughout the ear, and, as is usual with melanoma, surgery - and more than one - was the only possible treatment.
“I had to amputate my left ear - the auricle - entirely. Then, in the second operation, the surgeons removed the entire middle and inner ear, the salivary glands on the left side and all the lymph nodes, and part of the skull - the temporal bone - completely, ”Anthea told the BBC.
“I feel deep guilt before my husband and my children - after all, I brought all these troubles on myself. And I hurt myself of my own free will, having no idea how dangerous it is. "
There is no evidence that any kind of tanning under an ultraviolet lamp is less harmful than exposure to open sun, the British National Health Service has officially stated.
Authorities generally do not recommend sunbathing for cosmetic purposes, especially under UVA lamps.
The public fund "Melanoma in Britain" demands a complete ban on horizontal solariums.
Melanoma is the fifth most common cancer in Britain.
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In Russia, the incidence of melanoma is also growing: in 2019, it was detected in seven people out of 100 thousand citizens, and 10 years ago this figure was four cases per 100 thousand.From 2000 to 2010, the number of Russians with this type of cancer has increased by a third, according to data journal "Oncosurgery".
In the Russian National Medical Research Center of Oncology named after Blokhin, the spread of skin cancer among Russians was associated with the fact that they began to travel more often to southern resorts, other experts mentioned the growing popularity of tanning salons. “Even a single visit to the solarium increases the risk of developing melanoma several times,” oncologist Igor Utyashev told RIA Novosti in February last year.
Patients with diagnosed melanoma have high chances of cure, but it cannot be considered a “mild” type of cancer: good prognosis for treatment is possible only with early detection of a malignant tumor, at the first stage. And “severe” skin cancer begins already in the second stage, as metastases spread throughout the body through the bloodstream.
A sign of possible melanoma may be the appearance of a new mole, an increase or change in existing moles, freckles and birthmarks, tumors, red spots on the skin. For early diagnosis, experts strongly recommend that you conduct a self-examination and regularly appear to an oncologist-dermatologist.
