Skin cancer kills more Britons than Australians

The sun kills thousands more people in Britain, despite its comparatively feeble strength, than in Australia where it blazes much more fiercely, cancer experts said yesterday.

The sun kills thousands more people in Britain, despite its comparatively feeble strength, than in Australia where it blazes much more fiercely, cancer experts said yesterday.

In the past five years there have been 8,100 deaths in the UK from malignant melanoma compared with 4,900 in Australia – yet more people are diagnosed with the lethal form of skin cancer in Australia. The figures were revealed at the start of a government-backed campaign intended to banish the fashion for tanned skin and increase awareness of the early signs of skin cancer.

The SunSmart campaign is being imported wholesale from Australia where it is credited with changing attitudes over the past 20 years and saving thousands of lives.

Younger Australians now routinely wear T-shirts and hats in the sun and go to the doctor at the first sign of changes to moles on the skin, which give early warning of melanoma.

Dr Charlotte Proby, consultant dermatologist at Cancer UK, which will run the SunSmart campaign in Britain, said changing attitudes was a slow process and the benefits were only just being seen in Austra-lia. Melanoma rates, which were rising in the 1980s and 1990s, had started to decrease and tanned skin had gone out of fashion. "A lot of young people in Australia are not tanned. Schoolchildren are very aware of the need to wear sunblock and a hat. They have assimilated the messages in a way we have not done in this country," she said.

Although Australia has one-third of the population of the UK it has more cases of melanoma, because of the outdoor culture and strength of the sun. In 1999, 7,850 cases of malignant melanoma were diagnosed compared with 5,990 in Britain – but there were 1,000 deaths in Australia, against 1,600.

Doctors said yesterday the reason for the difference was that Australians presented earlier with thinner moles and not because treatment was worse in Britain. Patients whose melanoma is less than 0.75mm in depth at diagnosis have a 100 per cent chance of surviving five years, compared with 59 per cent for melanomas with a depth of more than 3mm.

Professor Robert Burton, senior adviser on cancer to the Australian government, said: "In Australia today more than 90 per cent of melanomas diagnosed are curable because they are picked up early. Skin cancer incidence is falling in Australians born after 1950 although it is still rising in the elderly."

In Britain, the incidence of melanoma has been rising at 5 to 7 per cent a year and is doubling every 10 to 20 years. The rise is associated with increasing wealth and the popularity of package holidays. Melanoma is caused by intense, intermittent exposure to the sun. An office worker who spends two weeks broiling on a Mediterranean beach is the typical victim.

Yet the highest incidence of melanoma in the UK is among Scots who have not been abroad. Their fair skin puts them at high risk even under northern skies.

Sun safety

The five messages of the £160,000 SunSmart campaign, which will distribute leaflets and posters to GP surgeries and schools are:

* Stay in the shade from 11am to 3pm.

* Make sure you never burn.

* Always cover up with a T-shirt, wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses.

* Remember to take extra care with children.

* Use factor 15 or a higher sunscreen.