UVR Emissions from Solaria in Australia

Peter Gies1, John Javorniczky1, Stuart Henderson1, Colin Roy1, Alan McLennan1, Jordan Lock1, Claire Lynga1 and

Louisa Gordon2

1 Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency2 Queensland Institute Medical Research

Australian Radiation Protection Society Conference (2010)

17 – 20 October 2010, Adelaide

AS/NZS** 2635 (2002) Solaria : allowed UV Index 60

Why Renewed Interest in Solaria ?• Clare Oliver effect?? > BrJDerm2008

• Research showed that many of the recommendations for solaria were not being complied with

• The studies concluded that self regulation of the solarium industry was clearly not working Paul et al (2005); Team et al (2006); Dobbinson et al (2006); Environmental Health Directorate WA (2006);

• IARC Publication on Solaria > Int J Cancer 2006

ARPANSA National Forum on Solaria• Organised in November 2007

• Contracted QIMR to do a report on health impacts of regulation of solaria > ARPANSA Website

• Brought together state regulators

• other stakeholders, Cancer Council Australia, Solarium Industry Representative

A Set of Basic Requirements for Solaria

• Prohibition on persons under 18 years of age;

• Exposures subject to operator supervision;

• Supervisors to be trained; ***• Only trained personnel to control exposures;

A Set of Basic Requirements for Solaria (cont)

• Skin type to be assessed by operators;

• Persons with skin type 1 to be prohibited;

• Clients to provide written consent before use;

• Specified limit on exposure in any session;

• At least 48 hrs between successive sessions. http://www.arpansa.gov.au/pubs/comment/dr_ndrp4.pdf

Impact of Solaria vs Solar UVR

• Original paper by Diffey Br J Derm 2003

• Compared sunbed use versus solar UVR exposures in British population

• 100 deaths/year in the UK due to solaria

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The Standards Committee on Solaria 2008

HEALTH AGENCIES:ARPANSA, Australasian College Dermatology, Cancer

Council Australia, NZ Cancer Society, NZ Dermatology Society, Radiation Advisory Council Australia, Sydney Melanoma Unit, Skin and Cancer Foundation, VicDHS

INDUSTRY:Australasian Solarium Association, Australian Chamber

Commerce and Industry (ATA)*, Australian Industry Group (Sunimports)*

CONSUMER GROUPS:Consumers’ Federation Australia, Consumer Action

The Standards Committee on Solaria 2008

• The 2002 Standard required updating eg: • skin types, age limits, operator training etc,

• upper limit of UVR emissions of UV Index 60, ie 5 times that of summer sunshine !!

• The solarium industry was prepared to consider a reduction as long as it did not entail a huge cost to the industry

The Standards Committee on Solaria 2008• For solaria in the EC the maximum intensity

allowed is UV Index 12 (since 2007)

• The question was, what were current solaria in Australia emitting?

• ARPANSA agreed to survey as many solaria as possible and report back to the committee

What did we find?

SOLARIA SPECTRAL EMISSIONS

0

5

10

15

20

280 300 320 340 360 380 400

Wavelength (nm)

Spec

tral

Irra

dian

ce (W

.m-2

.nm

-1)

30

48

11

40

26

16

SOLARIA SPECTRAL EMISSIONS

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1

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280 285 290 295 300 305 310 315 320

Wavelength (nm)

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tral

Irra

dian

ce

48

40

3016

0.0

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1.0

1.5

280 300 320 340 360 380 400

Wavelength (nm)

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tral I

rrad

ianc

e (W

/m2.

nm)

Solar Spectrum Solarium Lamp

0.0001

0.001

0.01

0.1

1

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100

280 300 320 340 360 380 400

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tral

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ce (W

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Solarium Solar

Solaria UV Index

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24

36

48

60

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19Number

UV

Inde

x

Solaria UVA Emissions

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140

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1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19Number

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(W/m

2)

Solaria UVB Emissions

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12

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Number

UVB

(W.m

-2

Solaria Solar

Solaria Emissions • Do solarium operators do not know what’s

coming out of their solaria?• They class sunbeds by time eg beds are

6 min, 8 min, 10min etc • However at one establishment, the three 8

min sunbeds differed in intensity by 55%, with UV Index values of 31.3, 40.7 and 48.6

• 8 min UV doses ranged from 3.8, 4.9 and 5.8 SEDs – overexposure is highly likely! **

• Pathway for reporting overexposures?

Implications of these Results(Gordon et al Med J Aust (2008) What Impact would

effective solarium regulation have in Australia.

No of new melanomas due to solarium use Vic NSW Qld SA WA51 75 121 14 20

No of melanoma related deaths from solaria Vic NSW Qld SA WA 7 12 14 5 5

Solaria: Recent Evidence?

(Lazovitch et al Cancer Epidem Biomarkers Prev (2010) US Case Control Study of sunbed use

• In a highly exposed population, frequent indoor tanning increased melanoma risk regardless of age when indoor tanning began

• Early age exposure is most likely a marker for cumulative exposure

Solaria: Recent Evidence?(Lazovitch et al Cancer Epidem Biomarkers Prev (2010)

• Likelihood of melanoma was significantly increased 2.86 times for users of high speed/ high intensity devices relative to non users

• These results indicate that the number of times an individual is exposed to indoor tanning is more important than exposure at an early age

Solaria: Recent Evidence?

(Cust et al International Journal Cancer 2010) Australian Case Control Study of sunbed use

• Compared with non users, users of sunbeds were 41% more likely to develop melanoma

• Among those sunbed users diagnosed between 18-29 years of age, 76% of melanomas were attributable to sunbed use

Solaria: Recent Evidence?(Cust et al International Journal Cancer 2010)

• Users who reported more than 10 sunbed sessions had twice the risk of melanoma as non-users

• Mutual adjustment of early age at first use and cumulative exposure indicated that cumulative exposure is probably more important than age at first use

Solaria: DRAFT REGULATIONS

Enforcement of solaria regulations mandated by ARPANSA’s National Directory for Radiation Protection > national uniformity!

Enforcement is the responsibility of each State jurisdiction.

Solaria: REGULATIONS AT LAST!

State regulations governing solaria enacted in • Victoria (1 February 2008), • South Australia (14 March 2008), • Queensland (5 November 2008), • Western Australia (September 2008), • New South Wales (29 May 2009) • and Tasmania (26 August 2009).

ARPANSA Solarium Operators Training Course

• Skin type assessment is important before clients are exposed

• Australasian College of Dermatology has checked this

• Web based training course almost complete ??

Solaria: The future?

• The reduction in solarium numbers reported in Victoria from 2006 to 2009 (Makin et al 2009) is positive, but will it be maintained ?

• ARL study of solaria emissions (Hlth Phys 1986)• Solarium numbers were similar to recently and

also changed significantly then as now• The solarium industry goes through cycles • Public education campaigns need to be

regularly reinforced

FUTURE QUESTIONS?• These results presented here are from

2008, before regulation• What would a follow-up survey find now

that regulations are in place? recent result*

• NSW Survey 2009 found only 2 of 89 solaria establishments were fully compliant

• NSW Survey 2010 found 41 of 72 establishments were essentially meeting their obligations

CONCLUSIONS• Solaria emissions ranged from UV Index 10

to 48, achieved with high UVA outputs eg> 438 W.m-2 but low % UVB

• Despite low % UVB, most solaria emitted more UVB and UVA than found in mid- latitude summer sunlight

• Solaria emissions in Australia would seem to be the highest in the world !

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to the staff of the ARPANSA UVR Section and the Regulation Branch who assisted with the measurements of UVR emission from solaria. Thanks also to the members of the Solarium Industry Groups on the Standards Committee who kindly made their solaria available for measurement.

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