Skin cancer statistics in New Zealand

Dr Elizabeth Baird, specialist dermatologist at Remuera Dermatology, gives information on the risks of melanoma and other skin cancers in New Zealand compared with elsewhere.

In this clip, Dr Baird talks about "cumulative sun exposure", which means the total amount of time your skin has been exposed to the sun’s UV rays over your whole life. Why do you think children in New Zealand have experienced 50 percent of their cumulative sun exposure by the time they're 18?

Transcript

Dr Elizabeth Baird

The risk of melanoma in New Zealand is significantly worse than the risk of melanoma in Western Europe. There does seem to be an increased instance of melanoma of people who have severe sunburn as a child. Whether your skin is more sensitive as a child, we don't really know, but that does certainly seem to be the case. We also know that you get 50 percent of your cumulative sun exposure by the time you are 18. So, if you are brought up in New Zealand, you are going to have a lot more sun by the time you are 18 than if you were, say… were brought up in Scotland. And that has a huge influence on your risk of melanoma. UV light contributes to melanomas, but much more commonly in New Zealand we see basal cell skin cancers and squamous cell skin cancers, which are in a different layer of the skin from the melanoma, and those, to, are caused by sunlight.

Recent studies have suggested that two out of three Caucasian New Zealanders can expect to get a non-melanoma skin cancer through their lives. I think that people in New Zealand are very, very aware of melanoma.

Acknowledgements
Dr Elizabeth Baird
Arun Kulshreshtha
Josef Wienand