1. ¹Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
2. ²Department of Community and Family Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School, Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA
3. ³Department of Pathology, Dartmouth Medical School, Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA

Correspondence: Dr Heather H. Nelson, Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Avenue, Building I, Room G5, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. E-mail: hnelson@hsph.harvard.edu

Received 31 October 2006; Revised 5 January 2007; Accepted 20 January 2007; Published online 29 March 2007.

Abstract

Non-melanoma skin cancers (NMSCs) are the most common malignancy among US Caucasians. Using a population-based study of NMSC we found that oral steroid use is associated with nearly 6-fold elevated risk of squamous cell carcinoma among individuals with a common genetic variant in the steroid receptor (NR3C1) gene. Given the large numbers of individuals on immunosuppressive drug therapy for inflammatory disease, these findings have important implications for NMSC screening and prevention.