Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/DSlHweeF4LV/Many think that a nice tan acquired at the tanning parlor makes you look healthy, but spending time under those UV lights may triple your risk of cooking up a deadly skin cancer. Dermatologists at Northwestern Medicine and the University of California-San Francisco now report this fact in the journal Science Advances after reviewing medical records from about 6,000 people and using single-cell DNA sequencing on skin biopsies from tanning-bed users and non-users.The tabulated data shows that people frequenting tanning beds have close to three times the risk of melanoma compared with non-users. That risk persists even after adjusting for sunburn history and familial predisposition. The DNA analysis reveals that the skin’s pigment creating cells, melanocytes, carried nearly twice as many mutations in people who tanned indoors vs outdoors. Most concerning is, these cancer-linked mutations appear not just on light-exposed skin, but also on normal-appearing areas li