Sun beds cost the US $343 MILLION a year in medical costs

March 1, 2017

There were 263,600 sun bed-related skin cancers in America in 2015
The total cost to care for all those diagnoses equates to $343 million a year
Despite this, the proportion of tanning salon users in the US is rising

Mia De Graaf For Dailymail.com

Published:
18:31 EST, 28 February 2017

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Updated:
18:31 EST, 28 February 2017

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Sun beds cost the US $343.1 million a year in medical costs related to skin cancer, a new study reveals.

There were 263,600 cases of skin cancer in 2015 that could be attributed to indoor tanning, according to a new analysis by the University of North Carolina.

That equated to a total loss of $127 billion over the patients’ lifetime.

Experts warn the staggering figures should be a red flag to regulators to restrict the use of tanning salons – for the health of sun bed users and the sake of every taxpayer that is paying for the consequences.

More than 30 million Americans use tanning salons – driving up skin cancer rates (file image)

‘Our calculations are all conservative, so this is the lower end of the estimate – the impact could be even higher than this,’ said Dr Hugh Waters of UNC.

‘Tanning devices cause hundreds of thousands of people to suffer a number of different diseases, costing billions of dollars and, most importantly, people’s lives. We hope that our results will help in the efforts toward reducing the use of tanning devices.’

There is strong evidence that tanning devices cause skin cancer.

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They emit UV radiation; UV-A damages cells and DNA, causing skin cancer, and UV-B causes burning and contributes to skin cancer.

In addition, there are several other diseases linked to indoor tanning, including dermatitis, keratitis and porokeratosis.

Despite this, the proportion of people in the US who use indoor tanning devices has risen over the last 20 years.

An estimated 30 million people now use the devices at least once a year, in the approximately 25,000 tanning salons across the country.

‘Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the US and its incidence is increasing, due in part to the increase in the use of tanning devices,’ said Dr Waters.

‘We know these devices have significant health and financial impacts, and with this study we wanted to establish these impacts clearly to support efforts to reduce their use, especially among younger people.’

The researchers focused on three types of skin cancer: cutaneous melanoma, basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma.

They identified the total number of cases in the US in 2015 and worked out how many of these cases were likely due to the use of tanning devices.

First, they analyzed data on prevalence of use of tanning devices.

Second, they looked at previous studies on links between tanning and cancer.

In total, there were 9,000 cases of melanoma, 86,600 cases of squamous cell carcinoma and 168,000 cases of basal cell carcinoma that could be attributed to the use of tanning devices.

From these figures, they drew up an estimated healthcare cost, based on the average annual cost of treating patients with each of the diseases.

It came to $343.1 million a year.

By working out the years of potential life lost due to the diseases, and the average lost earnings per person, they also determined the cost of working time missed due to the conditions.

These productivity losses amounted to US $127 billion over the lifetime of the people who had the conditions attributable do tanning devices in 2015.