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CHICAGO — People who work with a computer sitting on their lap might want to rethink that habit.
Doing it a lot can lead to "toasted skin syndrome," an unusual-looking mottled skin condition caused by long-term heat exposure, according to medical reports.
In one recent case, a 12-year-old boy developed a sponge-patterned skin discoloration on his left thigh after playing computer games a few hours every day for months.
"He recognized that the laptop got hot on the left side; however, regardless of that, he did not change its position," Swiss researchers report in an article published today in the journal Pediatrics.
Another case involved a Virginia law student who sought treatment for the mottled discoloration on her leg.
Dr. Kimberley Salkey, who treated the young woman, was stumped until she learned the student spent about six hours a day working with her computer propped on her lap. The temperature underneath registered 52 C.
That case, from 2007, is one of 10 laptop-related cases reported in medical journals in the past six years.
The condition also can be caused by overuse of heating pads and other heat sources that usually aren’t hot enough to cause burns. It’s generally harmless but can cause permanent skin darkening. In very rare cases, it can cause damage leading to skin cancers, said the Swiss researchers, Drs. Andreas Arnold and Peter Itin from University Hospital Basel. They do not cite any skin cancer cases linked to laptop use, but suggest, to be safe, placing a carrying case or other heat shield under the laptop if you have to hold it in your lap.
‘Toasted Skin Syndrome’ to 'Skin Cancer' From Warm Laptop
Wow, I googled "toasted skin syndrome", and the burn on this guy's thigh looks exactly like the one on my calf (from my space heater).
"Skin cancer" is being bandied about, but there have been no cases of skin cancer linked to laptop use, and I'd be surprised if any cases had been linked to toasted skin syndrome at all, given the fact that until the advent of laptops, it was overwhelmingly a condition of the elderly and infirm (and skin cancer is a slow-growing cancer which generally takes years to develop and manifest, and the elderly and infirm do not usually have "years").
I think the "skin cancer" link is more speculative than anything; certainly headline-grabbing, though.
Skin cancer is a controversial topic, especially when it comes to sun protection. Sun screen use has increased something like 300% in the last 30 years (I forget the exact statistic but the percentage is very high), but skin cancer rates are still climbing almost just as fast. There are claims that the chemical sun screens + the heat exposure which bakes them into your skin are a cause of cancer. I don't claim to know either way, but my strategy on high UV days is to cover up and not be outside during peak times, as opposed to slathering on chemicals.
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