Beating melanoma

Every six hours an Australian dies of melanoma. Every challenge offers a gift, and our battle with this deadly form of skin cancer has shaped Australia into a world leader in melanoma research and treatment. Here's how to beat our national cancer.

- Linda Moon

Every 30 minutes, roughly the time it will take you to read this article, someone in Australia is diagnosed with melanoma, says Professor Richard Scolyer, co-medical director of the Melanoma Institute Australia. "It's a big deal in our country." Australians are more likely to develop the deadly form of skin cancer than anywhere else in the world. About 1300 of us die from it each year - it's our third leading cancer battle. New Zealanders suffer from similar rates of the disease.

Everyone should protect against the sun

At the heart of most melanoma and other skin cancers is ultraviolet radiation from the sun. While central to life, this ancient blazing ball of hot gases unleashes deadly electromagnetic radiation on a daily basis. Most of the harmful stuff is absorbed by Earth's atmosphere. What makes it through are mostly infrared wavelengths, which provide the heat, visible light, which enables sight, and ultraviolet (UV) light, invisible to our senses.

UVA's longer wavelengths can sink into the deeper layers of the skin, as well as penetrate glass, causing wrinkles and photo ageing. UVB's shorter wavelengths only infiltrate the top layer, where it's involved in vitamin D synthesis - which can't occur through glass BTW! Too much UVB is the main cause of sunburn and cataracts. Both UVA and UVB can contribute to skin cancers. UVC, the most damaging, is absorbed by the ozone layer, as is most of UVB.

Evolution has provided us with a defence: melanin in the skin. You can blame our melanoma epidemic largely on colonial migration. People with fairer-skinned ancestors have less melanin: they simply haven't evolved to live in the high-UV light conditions that exist in our part of the world, Scolyer explains.

However, melanoma has increased drastically in modern times. In the United States, for instance, rates have grown over 320 per cent since 1975, according to WHO statistics. Why?