Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) may increase melanoma risk, a new study shows.
Mayo Clinic researchers found that IBD patients have 37% greater risk of developing melanoma. The findings were presented at the Digestive Disease Week 2013 conference in Orlando, Fla.
“Based on this data, we are suggesting that physicians appropriately counsel IBD patients about the risk of melanoma. Sun-protective measures are very effective in preventing this cancer,” says study author Siddharth Singh, MBBS, a Mayo Clinic gastroenterologist, in a news release.
Researchers determined this increased risk by performing a comprehensive search of all published studies on IBD over the last 70 years. They analyzed 172,837 patients with IBD (92,208 with Crohn’s disease; 79,360 with ulcerative colitis) to find the 179 cases of melanoma after an IBD diagnosis.
