Published 6 August 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1126
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1126

Letters

Sun and melanoma

Consequences of saying sun is not major cause of melanoma

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

As a consultant dermatologist running two week wait cancer clinics and dealing with between four and eight melanomas a week (and numerous other skin cancers) at our multidisciplinary team meeting across the whole county, I find Shuster’s arguments that melanoma is not related to sun exposure irresponsible and beyond rational thought.¹

The references quoted in his article are not a fair representation of the body of scientific evidence available to us, and when mixed with selectivity and conjecture, they cannot be relied on to form concrete opinion. Shuster’s statements on increased malignant diagnosis of "benign" moles are dangerous and don’t help the patient in the clinic presenting with a changing atypical naevus, or a patient with diagnosed melanoma re-presenting with local metastatic spread. Does he expect us to tell patients whose melanoma has been histologically diagnosed that they have a benign disease and the histopathologist is wrong?

Shuster’s interpretations of . . . [Full text of this article]

¹ Kent and Canterbury Hospital, Canterbury CT1 3NG

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