Skin Cancer: November 2006 Archives

According to a report in the Archives of Dermatology, 3.7-million doctor visits occur each year in the United States for the management of actinic keratoses. Actinic keratosis results from sun damage of the skin and is considered precancerous for nonmelanoma skin cancers.

Among patients older than 40 years old, 331 squamous cell cancers will evolve for every 100,000 lesions of actinic keratoses.

For those who have multiple lesions, nearly 60 percent of these lesions will progress into squamous cell cancer.

AUSTRALIA - The Cancer Council is alarmed by a survey showing Tasmanian students are ignoring sun smart messages and becoming complacent about skin cancer.

The 2005 survey found most students suffered sunburn the previous summer and were resistant to protective measures such as wearing hats, clothes which cover the body, sunscreen and sunglasses.

It also found 80 per cent of young Tasmanians desire a light tan and increasing numbers of girls wear less clothing to expose their skin to the sun.

LONDON - The body’s own immune system can fight the deadly cancer melanoma if scientists can flip the system’s “off” switch to “on,” two preliminary studies suggest.

Scientists have long sought to rev up the disease-fighting cells of the immune system to fight melanoma. The new work addresses the other side of the coin, the regulatory cells that normally keep disease-fighting cells in check.

By shutting those inhibiting cells off, scientists hope to enable the disease-fighting cells to mount a continuous attack on the cancer. Two new studies of that strategy were reported this week in Prague at a European cancer research meeting.

by Jacki Donaldson, The Cancer Blog

In the not-too-distant future, dermatologists will be able to diagnose skin cancer without ever cutting the skin.

Right now, doctors cut out all suspicious lesions in order to examine them, to determine if they are cancerous or not. But with the development of a new microscope, cells can be examined right on the body -- without cutting.

Moles matter, reported Matt Lauer on Thursday's TODAY show during an interview with a skin cancer expert. Moles are highly associated with melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. So it is critical that each mole is investigated. With this new high resolution technology -- essentially a video biopsy -- a camera will allow doctors to view cells, zero in on the area of concern, and pinpoint the exact cells that make up a mole. If the cells are similar in shape and size and have equal distribution, the mole is normal. If the individual cells are irregular and have no uniform pattern, the mole is abnormal and probably cancerous.