UV rays can damage skin cells. To lower your risk of getting skin cancer, you can protect your skin from UV rays from the sun, and avoid artificial sources of UV exposure like tanning beds and sunlamps.

Protection from UV rays is important all year, not just during the summer. UV rays can reach you on cloudy and cool days, and they reflect off of surfaces like water, cement, sand, and snow. In the continental United States, UV rays are strongest from 10 a. daylight saving time 9 a. standard time.

The UV Index forecasts the strength of UV rays each day. If the UV index is 3 or higher in your area, protect your skin from too much exposure to the sun.

CDC recommends several ways to protect your skin when the UV index is 3 or higher—. Indoor tanning using a tanning bed, booth, sunbed, or sunlamp to darken the skin exposes users to high levels of UV rays.

Over time, too much exposure to UV rays can cause skin cancers, cataracts, and cancers of the eye. A tan does not indicate good health. Melanin is the pigment that gives skin its color. It moves toward the outer layers of the skin and becomes visible as a tan. Any change in skin color after UV exposure whether it is a tan or a burn is a sign of injury, not health.

Skip directly to site content Skip directly to search. Español Other Languages. What Can I Do to Reduce My Risk of Skin Cancer? Español Spanish. Minus Related Pages. Making sun protection an everyday habit will help lower your skin cancer risk.

Practice Sun Safety Protection from UV rays is important all year, not just during the summer. CDC recommends several ways to protect your skin when the UV index is 3 or higher— Stay in the shade.

Wear sun-protective clothing , such as a lightweight and long-sleeved shirt, pants, a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses with UV protection, when possible. For more effective sun protection, select clothing with an ultraviolet protection factor UPF label.

Apply a broad-spectrum, water-resistant sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher. Broad-spectrum sunscreen provides protection from both UVA and UVB rays. Use sunscreen whenever you are going to be outside, even on cloudy days.

Apply enough sunscreen to cover all skin not covered by clothing. Most adults need about 1 ounce — or enough to fill a shot glass — to fully cover their body.

When outdoors, reapply sunscreen every two hours , or after swimming or sweating. Use extra caution near water, snow, and sand , as they reflect the damaging rays of the sun, which can increase your chance of sunburn.

Avoid tanning beds. Ultraviolet light from tanning beds can cause skin cancer and premature skin aging. Consider using a self-tanning product if you want to look tan, but continue to use sunscreen with it. As this damage builds, you speed up the aging of your skin and increase your risk for all types of skin cancer, including melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.

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Even if you have mild to moderate sun damage, protecting your skin can result in fewer visits to the doctor for minor procedures like freezing off or taking biopsies of suspicious spots, Chon says. The most important thing to do at any age to protect your skin is to seek shade between the hours of 10 a.

and 4 p. If you do go out in the sun, wear UV protective clothing and a wide-brimmed hat. You also should use sunscreen with a sun protection factor SPF of at least 30 every day, as well as SPF 30 lip balm.

Stay away from tanning beds and use sunglasses to protect your eyes. Your lifestyle also impacts your risk. If you have a history of sunburns or have used tanning beds, your risk for skin cancer is higher. Your job can make a difference as well.

Sun damage adds up over time, so the earlier you start your kids with a good skin protection routine, the better. If you can help your kids avoid sunburn, you also reduce their risk of skin cancer. One or more blistering sunburns as a child can double the lifetime risk of the most serious skin cancer, melanoma.

Modeling good sun safety is one of the best ways to teach your children to protect themselves throughout their life. Sun protection is a routine that becomes a regular habit once it is established.

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Retinoids are Vitamin A or vitamin A-like compounds that are applied to the skin or taken by mouth. Isotretinoin is a type of retinoid being studied in the prevention and treatment of certain cancers.

High doses of isotretinoin taken by mouth have been shown to prevent new skin cancers in patients with xeroderma pigmentosum. Isotretinoin cream has not been shown to prevent nonmelanoma skin cancers from coming back in patients previously treated for nonmelanoma skin cancers.

These treatments can cause serious side effects. Studies have shown that selenium taken in brewer's yeast tablets does not lower the risk of basal cell carcinoma , and may increase the risk of squamous cell carcinoma.

A study of celecoxib , a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug NSAID , in patients with actinic keratosis and a history of nonmelanoma skin cancer found those who took celecoxib had slightly lower rates of recurrent nonmelanoma skin cancers.

Celecoxib may cause serious heart and blood vessel side effects. A study of alpha-difluoromethylornithine DFMO in patients with a history of nonmelanoma skin cancer showed that those who took DFMO had lower rates of basal cell carcinomas than those who took a placebo , but no difference in squamous cell carcinoma rates.

However, those who took DFMO had greater hearing loss than the placebo group, leading to a higher rate of patients discontinuing this drug.

Studies have shown that nicotinamide vitamin B3 helps prevent new actinic keratoses lesions from forming in people who had four or fewer actinic lesions before taking nicotinamide. However, one study also showed an increased incidence of nonmelanoma skin cancers in patients months after they were treated with nicotinamide.

More studies are needed to find out if nicotinamide prevents nonmelanoma skin cancer from forming or coming back. It has not been proven that using sunscreen to prevent sunburn can protect against melanoma caused by UV radiation. Other risk factors such as having skin that burns easily, having many benign noncancerous moles, or having atypical nevi may also play a role in whether melanoma forms.

Studies show that people who receive counseling or information about avoiding sun exposure improve their sun protective habits. These studies show mixed effects on reducing sunburns and do not show whether skin cancers are reduced.

Harms of avoiding sun exposure may include mood disorders, sleep disturbances, higher blood pressure , and impaired vitamin D metabolism..

Cancer prevention clinical trials are used to study ways to lower the risk of developing certain types of cancer. Some cancer prevention trials are conducted with healthy people who have not had cancer but who have an increased risk for cancer.

Other prevention trials are conducted with people who have had cancer and are trying to prevent another cancer of the same type or to lower their chance of developing a new type of cancer. Other trials are done with healthy volunteers who are not known to have any risk factors for cancer.

The purpose of some cancer prevention clinical trials is to find out whether actions people take can prevent cancer. These may include eating fruits and vegetables, exercising, quitting smoking, or taking certain medicines, vitamins, minerals , or food supplements.

Clinical trials supported by other organizations can be found on the ClinicalTrials. gov website. Physician Data Query PDQ is the National Cancer Institute's NCI's comprehensive cancer information database.

The PDQ database contains summaries of the latest published information on cancer prevention, detection, genetics, treatment, supportive care, and complementary and alternative medicine. Most summaries come in two versions. The health professional versions have detailed information written in technical language.

The patient versions are written in easy-to-understand, nontechnical language. Both versions have cancer information that is accurate and up to date and most versions are also available in Spanish. PDQ is a service of the NCI. The NCI is part of the National Institutes of Health NIH.

The PDQ summaries are based on an independent review of the medical literature. They are not policy statements of the NCI or the NIH. This PDQ cancer information summary has current information about skin cancer prevention.

It is meant to inform and help patients, families, and caregivers. It does not give formal guidelines or recommendations for making decisions about health care.

Editorial Boards write the PDQ cancer information summaries and keep them up to date. These Boards are made up of experts in cancer treatment and other specialties related to cancer. The summaries are reviewed regularly and changes are made when there is new information.

The date on each summary "Updated" is the date of the most recent change. The information in this patient summary was taken from the health professional version, which is reviewed regularly and updated as needed, by the PDQ Screening and Prevention Editorial Board.

A clinical trial is a study to answer a scientific question, such as whether one treatment is better than another.

Trials are based on past studies and what has been learned in the laboratory. Each trial answers certain scientific questions in order to find new and better ways to help cancer patients.

During treatment clinical trials, information is collected about the effects of a new treatment and how well it works. If a clinical trial shows that a new treatment is better than one currently being used, the new treatment may become "standard. Some clinical trials are open only to patients who have not started treatment.

Clinical trials can be found online at NCI's website. For more information, call the Cancer Information Service CIS , NCI's contact center, at CANCER PDQ is a registered trademark.

The content of PDQ documents can be used freely as text. It cannot be identified as an NCI PDQ cancer information summary unless the whole summary is shown and it is updated regularly.

PDQ® Screening and Prevention Editorial Board. PDQ Skin Cancer Prevention. Bethesda, MD: National Cancer Institute. If you want to use an image from a PDQ summary and you are not using the whole summary, you must get permission from the owner. It cannot be given by the National Cancer Institute.

Information about using the images in this summary, along with many other images related to cancer can be found in Visuals Online. Visuals Online is a collection of more than 3, scientific images. The information in these summaries should not be used to make decisions about insurance reimbursement.

More information on insurance coverage is available on Cancer. gov on the Managing Cancer Care page. More information about contacting us or receiving help with the Cancer.

gov website can be found on our Contact Us for Help page. Questions can also be submitted to Cancer. Home Cancer Types Skin Cancer Patient Skin Cancer Prevention PDQ® —Patient Version.

Skin Cancer Prevention PDQ® —Patient Version On This Page What is prevention? General Information About Skin Cancer Skin Cancer Prevention About This PDQ Summary What is prevention?

Go to Health Professional Version. Key Points Skin cancer is a disease in which malignant cancer cells form in the tissues of the skin.