The recovery from ultraviolet radiation-induced erythema and melanoma risk factors: a case-control study.

The proportion of subjects recovering from skin erythema induced by a single ultraviolet radiation challenge of 6 times the minimal erythema dose during a 3-week period was lower in 47 patients with stage I cutaneous melanoma than in 48 healthy control subjects with similar risk factors of increased sensitivity to ultraviolet radiation (p = 0.045). This difference indicates that the patients with melanoma were more susceptible to prolonged ultraviolet radiation-induced skin damage than the control subjects. Prolonged erythema response was significantly associated in the melanoma group with decreased minimal erythema doses (odds ratio [OR] = 11.3) and with the presence of freckles (OR = 5.5), and was associated in the control group with light eye color (OR = 5.8). Prolonged ultraviolet radiation-induced erythema is neither a unique feature of melanoma patients nor a useful marker for identifying risk groups for cutaneous melanoma.