Laptop Heat May Cause 'Toasted Skin Syndrome'
The incidence of skin damage as a result of laptop use is rare: Only 10 cases have been reported since 2004, according to a report published on Monday in the peer-reviewed medical journal Pediatrics. Nine of those cases involved skin discoloration, known as "Erythema ab Igne"; the tenth case involved an actual burn.
The condition is sometimes called "toasted skin syndrome," and is commonly seen among elderly patients that use heating pads for prolonged periods. The consequences of the condition have a small chance of being serious.
The report, "Laptop Computer–Induced Erythema ab Igne in a Child and Review of the Literature," by Andreas W. Arnold and Peter H. Itin from the Department of Dermatology at University Hospital in Basel, Switzerland, suggests that skin discoloration as a result of prolonged laptop use has the potential to become thermally-induced cancer.
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This is not an immediate danger: "The latency of developing malignant tumors
seems to be long and extends [up to and beyond] 30 years," the report states. Nonetheless, because such malignancies have a tendency to metastasize, the authors consider the small statistical risk to be "a significant clinical concern."
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