Melanoma

My aunt (whom is very important to me) has been battling cancer for the past few years.
Last year, March I believe, marked her first chemo treatment which did nothing to help her.

She is in the middle of another treatment, that of which the doctors won't know if it did anything until Mid-July. She's due for another round on January 24th.

Now, my question is, how does someone who never went outside, save going in and out of buildings and things, get a skin cancer mainly caused by over exposure to the sun?

The doctors have yet to find a valid reason.

WebMD defines the cause of melanoma in the following categories:

1.Exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. and exposure at high altitudes. Damage to the DNA of melanocytes from exposure to the sun and its UV light radiation is the single most important factor in the cause of melanoma.
Tanning salons also expose your body to UV radiation and increase your risk of developing melanoma.
The depletion of the ozone layer may be significantly affecting the incidence of melanoma. It is estimated that there is a 1% increase in melanoma with each percentage decrease in the ozone layer.
2. Family history of melanoma.
3. Atypical moles
4. An impaired immune system, especially if you have had an organ transplant, leukemia, or lymphoma.

Neither of which, apply to my aunt.

Cancer is pretty random, it is pretty much just a DNA error that for some reason gets out of control. So it can have a reason or have no reason at all. Exposure to things that can cause DNA to go haywire can obviously increase the amount of DNA errors and thus the probability of cancer (toxins, radiation, viruses etc.) but it can also happen on its own without any help.

What about as a child? It is sort of a family joke (excuse the gallows humor) that when I get diagnosed with skin cancer I will seriously kill my mother. In one of those genetic quirks that I don't even pretend to understand, my mother, father and two siblings all have slightly darker skin than me. (naturally) All of them tan with fairly little sun exposure (and don't require sunscreen to avoid a burn), I burn, insanely. I am one of those people who gets a burn on her nose and cheeks from the 5 minute walk to work without sunscreen on an overcast day. My mother tans religously whether it is outside or in the tanning salon. I have never 'sunbathed' in my life. When seeing a dermatologistat the age of 25 concerning my sensitive skin, I mentioned my mother and her tanning habits to the doctor. He asked me about my sun exposure as a young child. (Forced to sit at the beach all day, burned often despite constant application of sunscreen) He informed me that though my mother has been intentionally tanning for longer than I've been alive, I was probably more likely to develop skin cancer because of my more succeptable skin and my childhood exposure.
Whether this is fact or just one doctors observation, I don't know.

^^^ Both the posters above are right on. The "sun over-exposure" you keep hearing about is true, but the most harmful kind of sun exposure IS the kind you get as a child.

Furthermore, it is felt nowadays that most cancers occur as the result of a "multi-hit" phenomenon -- i.e. for a given cancer to develop, event X must occur followed by totally unrelated event Y. Usually these events involve genetic mutations, which are often sporadic but can also be caused by viruses, drugs, radiation, or other environmental factors.

So......... unfortunately........ there may be no concrete answer.

Edited for stupid bullshit double post.

[Edited on Jan 11, 2006 by schadenfreude]