More women in the driving seat?

Changes in skin cancer distribution say 'Yes'
Geir O'Rourke

Differences between Australian men and women over upper body sites where skin cancer develops appear to be disappearing, a review of histopathology records suggests.

Years of anecdotal evidence, plus a handful of studies through the 1980s and ‘90s, have shown that Australian men develop more skin cancers and solar keratoses on their right arm and the right-hand side of their face – with women finding more on their left.

This distribution of cancers has been attributed to driving-related ultraviolet exposure, based on the idea that men were driving with the windows down in summer, while women sat in the passenger seat.

That sexist-seeming assumption has been backed up by a 2004 analysis of skin cancer patient records from the US, where people drive on the right, that found a predominance of melanoma and non-melanoma cancers on the exposed left side of the body.