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The University Daily Kansan is the student newspaper of the University of Kansas. The first copy is paid through the student activity fee. Additional copies of the Kansan are 50 cents. Subscriptions can be purchased at the Kansan business office. 2015A Dole Human Development
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Melanoma cases on the rise in Kansas
VICKY DÍAZ-CAMACHO
@vickyd_c
Nationwide melanoma rates have doubled since the 1980s and, in Kansas, the number of malignant cases has risen in about a decade from 16.3 to 23.4 cases per 100,000 people, according to Kansas Department of Health and Environment data compiled from 2001 to 2011 and released mid-June.
From 2007 to 2011, rates of melanoma diagnoses among people younger than 50 years old increased .3 percent, according to State Cancer Profiles. However, the mortality rate for melanoma of the skin dropped 3.7 percent.
Kasey Shriver, a recent University graduate from Carson, Iowa, was 17 when she was diagnosed with melanoma in December 2009. She'd been shopping for a prom dress when she noticed a mole on her back.
Shriver had a routine of visiting tanning salons up to three times per week. She started going at 14 years old.
"I don't regret anything in my life but, God, I really wish I didn't tan," Shriver said. "I think about it every day. Why did I do that?"
At first doctors thought it wouldn't spread because she was so young, but two weeks after her first surgery,
Over the span of two months, she had several surgeries to remove recurring spots of abnormal skin.
dermatologists removed five lymph nodes from her left arm, which tested positive. The cancer had spread.
In March 2010 she started immunotherapy, a form of treatment that extends over a longer period of time and "ramps up" the immune system, she said. Shriver was cancer-free for senior prom and her first few years at the University.
This January, however, doctors found a tumor near the base of Shriver's skull. Because it's located on her brainstem, it is inoperable. In February, she underwent gamma knife radiosurgery — a high dose of radiation that targets the cancer cells and her second round of immunotherapy, all during her last year of college. She is still undergoing treatment.
This year's data by the American Cancer Society predicted an estimated 850 new cases of melanoma cancers in Kansas. The mortality rate for melanoma in Kansas is 3.1 per 100,000 people, according to State Cancer Profiles.
"It's one the most deadly skin cancers; melanoma can very quickly turn life-threatening," said Dr. John Davis II, an oncologist from the University of Kansas Cancer Center who has been there almost 34 years. "I'm seeing the ones with the worst experience, so to speak. You see people with [cancer] in their early 20s and 30s, and that's a very terrible thing to see."
Melanoma is a tumor of melaninforming cells and the most aggressive form of skin cancer. Davis said the cancer can spread to the blood stream or bones.
It is natural for older individuals to get melanoma because of sun exposure over time, he said. However, tanning beds increase exposure to harmful ultraviolet rays. A 2013 study published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information reported 59 percent of college students use tanning beds at least once in their lifetime.
Overexposure to UV rays, natural or synthetic, such as those in tanning salons, increases damage to skin cells. Exposure to tanning beds before age 25 is strongly associated with both squamous cell carcinoma
and basal cell carcinoma, according to a 2012 study published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
Dr. Daniel Aires, a dermatologist at the University of Kansas Hospital, said the UV radiation causes mutation in cells' DNA. The UV rays can act to knock out genes and after a few of these hits, a cell can become cancerous and potentially deadly, he said.
In 2010, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reported that tanning salons are not regulated and are not required to report adverse effects.A study published in the medical journal "Cancer" in 2008 stated
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