Every year, 100,000 new cases of skin cancer are diagnosed. The main cause? Repeated and prolonged exposure to the sun, leading to sunburn.
Sunburn, also known in medical parlance as « solar erythema », is a burn of the skin that can be more or less severe and painful. It occurs following exposure to UV rays, when the skin is unprotected or inadequately protected.
As the WHO reminds us, when you get a sunburn, UV rays « kill most of the cells in the surface layer of the skin, and those that are not killed are damaged ».
Redness, pain, itching, even blistering – contrary to popular belief, sunburn « is not a skin burn », as a molecular biology student known on TikTok for his popular science content explains.
This reddened skin is actually the body’s immune reaction to UV rays, and the burning sensation is nothing more than « immunological inflammation », a response to internal or external aggression. The short- and long-term risks are numerous, and can go as far as skin cancer.
Redness and itching
These are the first signs of skin damage after sunburn, when the epidermis is burned to the first degree. They are also the least « serious ».
After a few days, when the skin has been properly cared for and is beginning to heal, a more or less significant desquamation (when the skin peels) may appear.
Blistering, dehydration and vomiting
In addition to the impact on the skin, sunburn can be accompanied by headaches, fever, nausea, vomiting and even malaise. This is a sign that you’ve suffered heatstroke and are dehydrated.
With a superficial second-degree burn, the skin becomes infected and blisters filled with a transparent liquid can be seen. In this case, healing can take one to two weeks, and scars and spots also take longer to disappear.
Deep burns, blistering and destruction of blood vessels
This stage, with a deep second-degree burn, is the most serious. It manifests itself in the formation of blisters and the destruction of blood vessels.
Here, the pain is no more intense (or even weaker, since it’s the nerve fibers that have been burned), but healing is much slower. It can take up to a month, leaving marks that are difficult to remove.
Skin aging and risk of skin cancer
Repeated sunburn is extremely dangerous in the long term. They accelerate skin ageing caused by the formation of free radicals, and increase the risk of skin cancer: cutaneous carcinoma, the most common form, and melanoma, the most dangerous. A cancer that is claiming more and more victims.
Cases of melanoma increased fivefold between 1990 and 2018. « This increase is a consequence of growing exposure to UV rays », as INCA, the French National Cancer Institute, reminds us.