Surfing is one of the most popular outdoor aquatic activities in Australia with an estimated 2.7 million recreational surfers however, Australia has long been recognized as having the highest incidence of melanoma in the world, and it is the most common type of cancer in young Australians. The aim of this study was to investigate the lifetime prevalence of non-melanoma (basal cell carcinoma (BCC), squamous cell carcinoma (SCC)), and melanoma skin cancers in Australian recreational and competitive surfers.
Australian surfers were invited to complete an online surveillance survey to determine the lifetime prevalence of non-melanoma and melanoma skin cancers.
A total 1,348 surfers (56.9% recreational) participated in this study, of which 184 surfers reported a skin cancer (competitive n=96, recreational n=87). Of non-melanoma and melanoma cancers reported, BCC was the most common (6.8%), followed by melanoma (1.4%) and SCC (0.6%). The relative risk was higher (p<0.001) in competitive versus recreational surfers (OR 1.74 (CI 1.28-2.31)). There was a higher (p<0.05) number of skin cancers reported on the face (23.5%), back (16.4%) and arms (12.4%). There were significant trends (p<0.001) in reported skin cancers between competitive and recreational surfers, as well as significantly (p<0.001) more skin cancers reported in males (14.6%) than females (9.4%).
Based upon these findings, individuals who surf are advised to regularly utilize sun protection strategies (avoid peak ultra violet radiation (10am-3pm), rashvest, hat and sunscreen) and primary care physicians are recommended to regularly screen their patients who surf. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 02 February 2018.
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