City expert's cancer findings

Dr Nick Levell

KIM BRISCOE
21 September 2009 06:00



Misleading reports of a skin cancer epidemic could be scaring people into staying out of the sun altogether, according to a city expert.

The sun is still a major cause of skin cancer and people need to be careful about how much sun they get, but recent reports of rises in the rates of melanomas could be misleading, according to Dr Nick Levell.

Initial findings by the consultant dermatologist at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital show that the rise in the east of England could be partly attributed to "diagnostic drift" as over the past 15 years doctors have erred more and more on the side of caution when diagnosing the early stages of skin cancer.

Dr Nick Levell said: “The sun is still a major cause of skin cancer, which is increasing in incidence, but we don't want to overstate it by panicking people.

“We want to say to people they still need to be careful in the sun to avoid skin cancer but it is reasonable to be get a little bit of sun on your skin.

“One of the concerns is that people need some sunlight for vitamin D. If you are short of vitamin D it can increase your risk of cancer.

“15 minutes of sunlight a day is a good thing, but everything should be in moderation and people shouldn't go to extremes.”

Working alongside colleagues from the Eastern Cancer Registry Information Centre, Dr Levell analysed the incidence of melanomas in East Anglia between 1991 and 2004. There were 3,971 melanomas in all, and their annual incidence increased from 9.39 to 13.91 cases per 100,000 per year during the period studied.

The increase was almost entirely due to diagnoses at minimal, stage one of the disease.

There was no change in the combined incidence of the other stages of the disease, and the overall mortality only increased from 2.16 to 2.54 cases per 100,000 per year.

Although further research still needs to be carried out by comparing contemporary diagnoses with those from 15 years ago, Dr Levell said: “Doctors are always under pressure and have to be cautious. If you diagnose it as benign and it turns out to be cancerous there can be terrible consequences for everybody.

“If there is a borderline case there is always a tendency to err on the side of caution and that's natural. If doctors keep on doing that there can be eventually a drift in what we call cancer and what we don't call cancer.”

He believes there needs to be a search for better diagnostic methods to distinguish 'early' lesions from truly malignant melanomas.

Do you have a story for the Evening News? Contact reporter Kim Briscoe on 01603 772419 or email kim.briscoe@archant.co.uk.

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