Ultraviolet Light Gel Manicures: Is There a Risk of Skin Cancer on the Hands and Nails of Young Adults?

Abstract

BACKGROUND: There appears to be limited research on whether the ultraviolet radiation used in nail lamps for gel manicures is increasing the incidence of skin cancer on the hands and nails of young adults. OBJECTIVE: We sought to assess evidence in the literature regarding the incidence of skin cancer on the hands and nails of young adults who receive gel manicures cured by ultraviolet light. METHODS: An extensive systematic literature review was conducted, focusing on patients aged 40 years or younger with a history of gel manicures diagnosed with nonmelanoma or melanoma skin cancers on the dorsum of their hands and nails. The Surveillance, Epidemiology and End-results Program (SEER) (SEER 9 and SEER 21) was chosen to analyze trends in the incidence of melanoma from 2007 to 2016. The SEER*Stat Client-serve Mode software was used to retrieve the incidence rates of melanoma of the skin among individuals aged 0 to 39 years from 1975 to 2016. RESULTS: There have been no cases reported of patients younger than the age of 40 years with a history of chronic gel manicures diagnosed with nonmelanoma skin cancer or melanoma on the dorsum of the hands or nail matrices. SEER revealed little to no change in the incidence of melanoma among patients under the age of 65 years. CONCLUSION: The literature is controversial regarding whether ultraviolet radiation from chronic gel manicures increases the risk of skin cancer on the hands and nails. A comprehensive literature search and the SEER database revealed that gel manicures have little to no carcinogenic risk.

Keywords: Gel manicures; hands; melanoma; nails; nonmelanoma skin cancer; ultraviolet light nail lamps.