A number of environmental and hereditary factors seem to affect a person's risk for melanoma.
- People with light complexions -- particularly those who have had excessive exposure to sunlight -- are at higher-than-average risk for melanoma. People with dark skin, however, are not immune.
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Severe, blistering sunburns at any time in life can increase risk for melanoma. Sunburns are an indication of the wrong kind of sun exposure -- the intermittent or sporadic "blast" of high levels of sun, such as that received at noon on the beach.
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Anyone who has a family history of melanoma (one or more relatives who have had the disease) is at a higher-than-average risk for melanoma. In families that have a history of melanoma, skin examinations to look for abnormalities should begin before age 10. Dysplastic nevi, the atypical moles that sometimes precede melanoma, also tend to run in families.
- People with weakened immune systems -- such as AIDS patients, organ transplant patients on immunosuppressive drugs, and patients with certain cancers -- have a higher than average risk for melanoma. Also, people with xeroderma pigmentosum (a rare inherited skin condition associated with defective repair of DNA caused by UV radiation) have a high risk for melanoma and other skin cancers on exposed areas of the skin.
