Ultraviolet radiation is not the major cause of melanoma mortality in the UK and sun exposure advice should be revised

Abstract

Melanoma has the highest mortality of all skin cancers and efforts to reduce this are focussed on sun avoidance. Current UK guidance suggests that 86% of melanomas could be prevented by sun avoidance, which is considerably more than the 72% of lung cancers attributed to cigarette smoking. Unfortunately, the data on which the attributable risk of melanoma to sunlight are based are either speculative or incorrect and recent advances show that they and our approach to preventing melanoma deaths must be reconsidered.