“Put more sunscreen on your head than butter on your pancake,” you can read on social networks since June with “Breizh Alert”, a skin cancer awareness campaign in Brittany.
Surprising as it may sound, the region has a skin cancer rate three times higher than the national average. “We are facing a gradual but continuous increase in the number of melanomas in Brittany over the last 30 years”, worries Élodie Poullin, director of the CPAM of Côtes-d’Armor, in charge of coordinating prevention in the Brittany region.
Several factors can explain this uniqueness of the Armorican peninsula, with about a thousand melanomas diagnosed each year and, in women, “a significant excess mortality of 28% compared to metropolitan France,” according to Health Insurance.
“A significant UV incidence”, even under clouds
First, the inhabitants tend not to protect themselves against the sometimes cool and cloudy weather. “However, despite all the talk, Brittany still has a significant incidence of UV,” says dermatologist Luc Sulimovic, president of the National Union of Dermatologists-Venereologists (SNDV).
“Sunburn can also occur when the temperature is lower, in terms of UV intensity level 3, you have to protect yourself and not only on the beach,” adds Élodie Poullin.
Another explanation for this singularity: settlement. “Among the population, we have a lot of phototype 1. When we have light skin, eyes, skin tone, hair color, genetically we have a higher risk of developing cancer,” says Élodie Poullin.
Finally, the inhabitants tend to spend a lot of time outdoors in a region where the coasts are counted in thousands of kilometers. Not to mention a large population of farmers and fishermen “who continually expose themselves” without always having the reflex to use sunscreen, notes Nicole Cochelin, a dermatologist in Montfort-sur-Meu, west of Rennes.
raise awareness to educate
This rise comes as Britain experiences a shortage of dermatologists, capable of detecting skin cancers that can prove fatal. “Saint-Brieuc, there were ten dermatologists ten years ago, now there are more than one. And of the 120 dermatologists in Brittany, 30% will retire within five years”, Dr. Cochelin, elected member of the Regional Union, is alarmed of health. Professionals (URPS).
In addition, to deal with this situation, dermatologists have launched since the summer of 2021 tele-expertise with general practitioners. “There is a big problem with people who do not see each other. We want to limit the loss of opportunities, general practitioners take a photo and send it to us,” he explains, specifying that there have been more than a thousand tele-expertises. in one year.
It remains that the increase in skin cancers is a worldwide and durable phenomenon, according to the World Health Organization, which recensait in 2020, more than 1.5 million cases of skin cancers diagnosed and more than 120,000 associated deaths. in the world.
In general, “people are more and more outdoors and more and more on vacation. Getting a tan is synonymous with ‘I went on vacation’. The population will have to educate themselves to protect themselves from UV rays”, says Luc Sulimovic, underlining the importance of prevention and early detection.
Source: BFM TV
