Deadly skin cancer striking teenagers

Teenagers in Queensland are breaking out in deadly sun cancers normally found on much older outdoor workers such as farmers.

Alarmed skin cancer specialists are treating people in their late teens and early 20s displaying pre-cancer and cancerous spots usually associated with 60-year-olds.

The worrying trend is backed by research from the Cancer Council of Australia showing that almost a quarter of the country's teens are getting burnt on any given weekend.

The Cancer Council said young people were heeding the message that it was dangerous to tan but were still getting sunburnt by accident.

Australasian College of Dermatologists secretary Stephen Schumack said yesterday doctors were seeing more young people present with multiple pre-cancer and cancerous spots.

"Usually there's a delay of two, three or four decades from the time skin is sun damaged to the onset of cancer," he said. "But I've seen someone as young as 14 with skin cancer so it certainly can happen earlier."

Melanoma is the most common form of cancer in people aged 12 to 24 and Queensland has the worst rates of skin cancer in the world.

A national sun protection survey, jointly funded by the Cancer Council and Federal Government, found the number of teenagers deliberately tanning had dropped 45 per cent over the past three years. But 24 per cent of adolescents aged 12-17 (397,000) were still getting sunburnt on an average summer weekend in 2006-07.

Adolescents are less likely to wear a hat (29 per cent compared with 38 per cent three years ago) or long-sleeve clothes (9 per cent compared with 11 per cent) when outside in the sun.

Cancer Council of Queensland sunsmart manager Lisa Naumann said the findings were disturbing.

The survey found the only form of sun protection that teenagers participated in with any regularity was wearing sunglasses while outdoors.

"It is shocking when statistics of this type show that any group is not heeding the messages that we are sending out," Mrs Naumann said.

Cancer Council chief executive Ian Olver said teenagers were simply not thinking about the everyday dangers of the sun.

"The bad news is one in four teenagers is still getting burnt not because they want to get a tan but because they are forgetting to protect themselves," Professor Olver said.

"In contrast, adults are clearly putting sunsmart behaviour into practice with a 31 per cent fall in adults reporting they were sunburnt since the last survey in 2004."

The Cancer Council research shows boys are more likely than girls to get sunburnt because they spend more time outside in peak UV times and are less likely to wear sunscreen.

"The trouble with boys is that they just don't think about it when they go outside," Ms Naumann said.

"Girls are more likely to wear sunscreen and cover up because of fashion and the anti-ageing messages getting through."