Dermatology groups who point to data they say suggests an increase in the relative risk of skin cancer for sunbed users compared to non-users probably should also point to data showing that the absolute risk for both groups is lower than people think, according to an article penned on the topic by an officer in the Association of Health Care Journalists.

Dr. Ivan Oransky, editor of Reuters Health, wrote that the largest study on this topic suggests that 3 in 1,000 sunbed users get melanoma, in the largest study on this topic, compared to 2 in 1,000 non-users — and that’s in a European study that included home and medical use of sunbeds as well as Skin Type I subjects who are known to be at a higher risk.

Oransky cited Wilmington, Del. News Journal reporter Hiran Ratnayake’s work looking into the numbers. “For some perspective on those numbers, Ratnayake interviewed Lisa Schwartz, M.D.,M.S., whose work on statistical problems in studies and media reports is probably familiar to many AHCJ members,” Oransky wrote.

What did Schwartz tell Ratnayake? “Melanoma is pretty rare and almost all the time, the way to make it look scarier is to present the relative change, the 75 percent increase, rather than to point out that it is still really rare,” Schwartz, a general internist at Veterans Affairs Medical Center in White River Junction, Vt., told him.

Oransky continued, “This is not an argument for or against tanning beds. It’s an argument for clear explanations of the data behind policy decisions. For some people, the cosmetic benefits of tanning beds – and the benefit of vitamin D, for which there are, of course, other sources – might be worth a tiny increase in the risk of melanoma. For others, any increased risk of skin cancer is unacceptable. (And of course, for the tanning industry, the benefits can be measured in other ways – dollars.) But if reporters leave things at “a 75 percent increase,” you’re not giving your readers the most important information they need to judge for themselves. So when you read a study that says something doubles the risk of some terrible disease, ask: Doubles from what to what?”

Click here to download Oransky’s column.

“Melanoma is pretty rare and almost all the time, the way to make it look scarier is to present the relative change, the 75 percent increase, rather than to point out that it is still really rare,”

-Schwartz, a general internist at Veterans Affairs Medical Center in White River Junction, Vt.