Swedish skin cancer cases fall for first time in half century

The number of skin cancer cases among adult Swedes under the age of 50 is falling, something that has not happened for more than 50 years.

It has been suggested that the mass immigration of non-Europeans with darker skin and the tendency of Swedes to spend more time indoors, engaging with digital devices, might be two possible explanations..

– Before we saw this, we were quite helpless because there has been such a steady increase in recent years, Hildur Helgadottir, chief physician and associate professor of oncology, told Swedish national broadcaster SVT.

Since the 1960s, there has been an almost uninterrupted increase in skin cancer cases, which has been linked to Swedes spending more time on the beach and traveling to sunny destinations.

Now, however, researchers at Karolinska Institutet say they are seeing a “trend reversal” – but it is not entirely clear what is causing it.

– Around 2015, the curves for melanoma incidence turned downward, Helgadottir continues.

Campaigns may have worked

The fact that it has taken a long time to see a reduction is because it usually takes several years for sun damage to develop into cancer – and the researchers wanted to be sure that this was not a temporary and insignificant reduction in skin cancer cases.

Why fewer people are getting skin cancer now is not entirely clear – but there are four possible explanations.

The first is that the information campaigns that began in the 1990s about protecting yourself from the sun, staying in the shade, and the like have actually worked.

– Before that, it was very common for children to burn themselves. You would often see children who had burned themselves several times, with scaling and blisters, she says.

Darker pigmentation more common

Another possible partial explanation is that there are fewer tanning salons today, and they have an 18-year-old age limit. At the same time, most bathhouses have removed their sunbeds.

The fact that Swedes spend more time indoors surfing the web or playing with computers and mobile phones may also have led to less exposure to sunlight.

A fourth explanation is that a large part of the Swedish population now has darker skin due to a generous mass immigration policy, and therefore does not get skin cancer as easily as ethnic Swedes.

It should be noted that similar reductions in skin cancer have also been reported in Australia and the US. However, Sweden is said to be the first country in Europe where a reduction has been confirmed.

– This is probably mainly because we have such good health registers in Sweden, where we can look at such correlations almost in real time, says Helgadottir.