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Preliminary assessment of the risks associated with solar ultraviolet-A exposure

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Abstract

An approach is proposed to assess the periods of human skin exposure to solar ultraviolet-A (UV-A, 315–400 nm) irradiance in natural conditions that are able to yield doses found to trigger carcinogenesis in laboratory experiments. Weighting functions, adopted to perform such estimate are constructed, allowing for a comparison between environmental and laboratory doses. Furthermore, the impact of stratum corneum (SC) thickness on the studied environmental doses was investigated. Based on laboratory studies, it was found that exposure periods of less than a month, at mid-latitudes, could provide irradiance doses capable of causing tumor formation. The duration of these exposure periods closely depends on the exposure regime, atmospheric conditions and SC thickness. It is believed that the presented evaluations could provide a useful preliminary estimation of the risk associated with environmental UV-A exposure prior to the formulation of the corresponding action spectra and determination of the threshold doses.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Dr. Beate Volkmer from the Dermatology Centre, Buxtehude, Germany, for providing the spectral characteristics of the UV-A lamps used in their experiments (Wischermann et al. 2008), and to Dr. Richard McKenzie from National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Lauder, New Zealand for helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (ISAC) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), Via Gobetti 101, 40129, Bologna, Italy

    Boyan Petkov, Vito Vitale, Claudio Tomasi, Mauro Mazzola, Christian Lanconelli, Angelo Lupi & Maurizio Busetto

  2. International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), TRIL Programme, Strada Costiera 11, 34014, Trieste, Italy

    Boyan Petkov

  3. Centre for Molecular Oncology and Imaging, Institute of Cancer and CR-UK Clinical Centre, Barts and The London School of Medicine (QMUL), London, UK

    Emanuela Gadaleta

  4. Institute of Acoustics “O.M. Corbino”—ICES Group, Italian National Research Council (CNR), Via Fosso del Cavaliere 100, 00133, Roma Tor Vergata, Italy

    Elena Benedetti

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  1. Boyan Petkov
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  2. Vito Vitale
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  3. Claudio Tomasi
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  8. Maurizio Busetto
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  9. Elena Benedetti
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Correspondence to Boyan Petkov.

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Petkov, B., Vitale, V., Tomasi, C. et al. Preliminary assessment of the risks associated with solar ultraviolet-A exposure. Radiat Environ Biophys 50, 219–229 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00411-010-0335-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00411-010-0335-8

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