UV and Reactive Oxygen Species Activate Human Papillomaviruses Causing Skin Cancers.

Abstract

Cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM) and nonmelanoma skin cancers (NMSC), squamous cell and basal cell carcinomas, have been increasing at exponential rates for as long as the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) have been collecting data starting from 1955 in some northern European countries and 1960 in most other European countries. Different strains of the human papilloma virus (HPV) have been found in CMM and NMSC biopsies and implicated in the carcinogenic process as a "hit-and-run" mechanism and can spread at exponential rates, especially since the 1960s' sexual revolution. This chapter covers only IARC data for CMM in the European countries from 1960 to 2018, plotted by regions (northern, middle, and southern latitudes and eastern versus western longitudes), countries latitudes, and each country over time, which shows that about half have linear and the other half have exponential increases in CMM. From this analyzed data and published data in the literature, the major risk factors of CMM appear to be light hair color, especially red and white hair (reactive oxygen species and UVA; 320-400 nm), low cutaneous vitamin D3 levels, and HPV after 1960, while there was no apparent risk from exposure to UVB (290-320 nm) or sunburns.