CHICKEN eggs containing a drug that can target and treat skin cancer have been produced by Scottish scientists. Researchers at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh, where Dolly the Sheep was cloned, used genetically modified hens to lay the drug-laced eggs. By "hijacking" the biological processes of the hens they were able to concentrate high levels of the drug inside the egg whites. The drug comes in the form of an antibody in the egg white. It specifically targets the malignant melanoma cells that cause skin cancer. The breakthrough has raised hopes that large quantities of the cancer drug can be harvested for patients from chicken eggs.

It is the first time drugs have been successfully produced in large quantities inside animal food products. Previous attempts to grow drugs inside sheep milk have proven to be ineffective. Researchers at the Roslin Institute are now trying to breed a second generation of hens capable of laying drug-laced eggs in a bid to produce larger flocks that can be used as "factories" for making the drug. Standard laboratory methods used to produce the drug, called Anti-R24(h), are expensive and time consuming. But using genetically modified chickens, researchers were able to produce large quantities of the drug cheaply and quickly.

"We are hijacking one of the protein genes and replacing it with our drug protein instead," said Dr Helen Sang, of the Roslin Institute. "With a modified cockerel it should be possible to produce a whole flock of transgenic hens. Each hen lays one egg a day, so it means we could produce a lot of the drug from that."

The Avian Transgenic Manufacturing project is a joint venture between the Roslin Institute, US-based drug company Viragen and the biotechnology firm Oxford BioMedica. They are aiming to have the first chicken egg-produced drugs available for use by cancer patients within five years after initial clinical trials of the antibody drug have already proven to be successful. It works by hunting out and detecting molecules on the outside of the cancer cells and helping the body's immune system destroy them.

Sang claims while patients could take the drug by eating one of the "designer" eggs, it is unlikely the drug regulation authorities would allow it to go on the market unpurified. "It is a nice idea, but eggs contain a lot of other things. All drugs have to meet stringent criteria and have to be a certain purity, and it would be difficult to prove the drug is pure in an uncracked egg."

Genetics experts last night hailed the method as a major breakthrough. Professor Richard Wilson, of Glasgow University, said: "Being able to produce viable drugs inside chicken eggs is a big step and being able to obtain a drug by cracking an egg is very attractive." Previous attempts to produce drugs in animal products have failed to live up to the same expectations. A spin off company from the Roslin Institute, PPL Therapeutics, aimed to produce drugs in sheep milk, but the firm went bust within a few years. Other firms have also tried to use milk from goats and cows to produce drugs but none have proved commercially viable.

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Study: Curry ingredient fights skin cancer-(Reuters10/07/2005)

The compound that makes curry yellow could help fight skin cancer, U.S. researchers reported. They said curcumin, found in the spice turmeric, interferes with melanoma cells. Tests in laboratory dishes show that curcumin made melanoma skin cancer cells more likely to self-destruct in a process known as apoptosis. The same team has found that curcumin helped stop the spread of breast cancer tumor cells to the lungs of mice.

Bharat Aggarwal of the Department of Experimental Therapeutics at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and colleagues treated three batches of melanoma cells, known as cell lines, with curcumin at different doses and for varying times.

The curcumin suppressed two proteins that tumor cells use to keep themselves immortal, the researchers write in next month's issue of the journal Cancer. "Based on our studies, we conclude the curcumin is a potent suppressor of cell viability and inducer of apoptosis in melanoma cell lines," Aggarwal's team wrote. "Future investigation to determine the effects of curcumin in animal models of melanoma and clinical trials are planned."

Earlier research has shown that curcumin, which acts as an antioxidant, can help prevent tumors from forming in the laboratory. Aggarwal said people who eat plenty of turmeric have lower rates of some cancers, although the spice itself has not been shown to reduce cancer risk in people.

Cancer study yields clues on gray hair-(Times of India-24/12/2004)

US cancer researchers have developed a new explanation for graying hair that they hope will also shed light on the most dangerous type of skin cancer. Senior Researcher, Dr. David E. Fisher of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston said, "What we really want is to come up with treatments for melanoma."

Melanoma is the malignant form of melanocytes, the cells that help colour hair and skin and is partially resistant to chemotherapy and radiation. Fisher's team found that hair turns gray when melancoytes get depleted. The scalp retains a reservoir of adult stem cells that provide a continuous supply of these colour making cells, but as the body ages, these cells become depleted and sometimes begin to develop in the wrong part of the hair follicle.

Studies: Sun holds cancer benefits and risks-(AP-02/02/2005)

Sunlight exposure, a major risk factor for the potentially deadly skin cancer melanoma, may also help victims survive that disease, new research indicates. And a second study indicates that exposure to sunlight may reduce the risk of getting cancer of the lymph glands. Researchers stress that their findings do not mean people should rush out and start baking in the sun. As for what people should do to gain sunlight's benefits without its downsides, an editorial accompanying the studies said more research is needed.

"Sunlight, particularly ultraviolet radiation, is a very well established human carcinogen. Nothing in these papers should in any way detract from this message," said Kathleen M. Egan of Vanderbilt University Medical Center. But the new reports, being published this week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, do provide important clues to the development of these cancers and some factors that may slow or stop them.

Melanoma has been increasing over the past half-century in developed countries with Caucasian populations, and studies have consistently found exposure to the sun a major risk factor. However, a new look at 528 melanoma victims over five years also found that increased sun exposure led to increased survivability, according to the study led by Marianne Berwick of the department of internal medicine at the University of New Mexico. "It's totally counterintuitive, and we're trying to investigate it," said Berwick, noting that she is now doing a similar study of 3,700 melanoma patients worldwide. "It's really strange, because sunburn seems to be one of the factors associated with improved survival, and that doesn't make much sense, so we think sunburn's a proxy for the kind of sun exposure that leads to melanoma. But there's so much we need to know," Berwick said in a telephone interview.

She said Vitamin D, which the skin makes in response to sunlight, may be a factor. Vitamin D can help regulate cell growth and help cells stop unneeded growth through a process called apoptosis. Another possibility is solar elastosis, a response to sunlight that breaks down collagen in the skin -- the same process that causes sun-related wrinkling. "It may be something in solar elastosis itself ... it may be that some physical barrier created by this breakdown of collagen keeps the melanoma from getting into the blood and lymph system," Berwick said.

In the second study, a research team led by Karin Ekstrom Smedby of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, studied 3,000 lymph cancer patients and a similar number of people without lymph cancer in Denmark and Sweden. They found that increased exposure to ultraviolet radiation through sunbathing and sunburns resulted in a reduced incidence of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Vanderbilt's Egan, who was not involved in either research team, said it's unlikely to be sunlight itself that is an explanation of these findings. The scientific community is converging on the idea that Vitamin D is likely to be a protective agent in cancer, she said in a telephone interview. "It's long been known that Vitamin D is a critically important agent in bone health," she noted. "More recently it has become increasingly obvious that Vitamin D has important regulatory functions in the cell, in terms of cell division," she said.

In an accompanying commentary in the journal, Egan and co-researchers at Vanderbilt say the two findings are of particular interest because non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is suspected of being caused in a way similar to skin cancer. More than a million cases of skin cancer are attributed to sun exposure annually in the United States, with about 54,000 cases of melanoma diagnosed each year, noted the Vanderbilt researchers, which also included Jeffrey A. Sosman and William J. Blot.

Advanced melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer, can be successfully treated in some cases by vaccinating patients with tumor proteins. How these vaccines work and why they are only effective in some patients remains unclear. Pierre Coulie and colleagues now show, in two articles in the January 17 issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, that these vaccines work by increasing the number of immune cells called killer T cells that can attack the tumor. In an unexpected finding, however, they discovered that that these cells mostly recognize tumor proteins that were not contained in the vaccine. Understanding the characteristics of the T cell populations that are expanded after vaccination may help in the development of more effective anti-tumor vaccines

Tumor-specific T cells can be detected in the blood and the tumors of many melanoma patients, and yet these cells are unable to kill the tumor. What causes the impotence of these T cells is a mystery. Equally mysterious is why vaccination against tumor-specific proteins sometimes causes tumor regression without expanding large numbers of vaccine-specific killer T cells.

Pierre Coulie's group studied anti-tumor T cells in patients vaccinated with a tumor antigen called MAGE-3. In one patient whose tumor regressed after vaccination, the authors found significantly more T cells specific for non-vaccine tumor proteins than were detected before vaccination. Vaccine-specific T cells, on the other hand, became detectable but did not expand to large numbers. Thus, reinvigoration of existing tumor-specific T cells after vaccination did not require large numbers of vaccine-specific T cells.

Although it is not known how these tumor-specific cells get activated, Coulie thinks that the few T cells stimulated by the vaccine may change the local, suppressive environment of the tumor such that other T cells can snap out of their stupor and attack the tumor.

Kids Need to Wear Sunscreen, Hats, Shirts, Shades for Skin Cancer Protection-(Yahoo News-16/08/2004)

After a child's first summer, mothers often lapse in protecting the child's skin from the sun, new research shows. Yet that's a critical time to wear sunscreen and cover arms and legs, to protect against skin cancer. "Painful sunburns during childhood are particularly important in the development of melanoma, a life-threatening form of skin cancer... yet "at least two-thirds of U.S. children are not adequately protected from the sun," writes researcher Lori Steinberg Benjes, MD, a professor of dermatology at Boston University. Her study appears in the latest issue of the Archives of Dermatology.

In it, Benjes surveyed 92 families -- all with newborns -- to learn about their sun protection efforts during their child's first and second years. All the families lived in Falmouth, Mass., where a well-publicized sun protection education program was underway. Despite the publicity, mothers quit protecting their babies' skin early on. After the first summer (when the children were about six months old), skin damage rates increased from 22% to 54% the second summer, when they were about 18 months old, Benjes reports. Fewer hats, long-sleeved shirts, and shades were used after children reached six months, she writes. Yet more than 90% of mothers reported routinely using sunscreen during the child's second summer.

What's going on? As children become more active, mothers may have trouble keeping hats and shirts on them, writes Benjes. Also, mothers may not realize that wearing sunscreen alone is not adequate protection, she adds. Because there were few fully shaded playgrounds and pool sites in Falmouth, that was a problem. While children are in newborn through toddler stages, mothers must be more proactive with safe-sun strategies, she writes. Sun protection must be taught as part of a routine. When kids hit preadolescence, it's another critical time to bolster the message: Wear sunscreen and cover skin during peak times of the day to prevent skin cancer

MONKLANDS' sunworshippers are being warned against the risk of skin cancer. North Lanarkshire Council's Trading Standards Service, the health board and Cancer Research UK are advising people to:- l) Stay out of the sun, especially during the middle of the day when the sun's rays are at their strongest. 2) Cover up - wear a t-shirt and wide-brimmed hat. Don't forget to protect your eyes. 3) Use sunscreen with at least SPF 15. Apply generously and often and at least 20 minutes before going out in the sun.4) Take special care with babies and young children. Babies under six months should be kept out of the sun. Research has shown that people who were sunburned during childhood are at greater risk of developing skin cancer in later life. 5) Above all - don't burn.

Sunburn can double your risk of skin cancer and don't forget that the sun's rays can still cause damage on cloudy days. For the period 1996-2000 just over nine per cent of registered cases of skin cancer in Scotland were in the Lanarkshire Health Board area. Between 1998-2002 almost nine per cent of deaths from this disease in Scotland were recorded for the same area. The Trading Standards Service carried out a project on sunscreens to find out if they provide the level of sun protection which they claim to offer. Dave Roderick, Trading Standards manager, said: "Sunscreens can often be very expensive. It has been estimated that the cost of buying brand name sunscreens for a family of four on a fortnight's holidays could be as much as £100. "A range of sunscreens, including some of the cheaper brands available in North Lanarkshire were purchased by Trading Standards officers and submitted to the public analyst for testing. Despite the fact that some of the products cost as little as 99p, there were no adverse test reports. "All products sampled were found to provide the level of SPF claimed on the labelling - a few provided slightly higher levels than those stated."

Anne Scott, the project manager, added: "The results indicated that there are cheaper alternatives to the expensive, well-known brands - so you don't have to shell out a fortune to save your skin. Just make sure that you use a broad spectrum sunscreen to protect you both from UVA and UVB and one with at least a SPF of 15. Shop around, keep an eye open for special offers and buy from a reliable source. Leaflets and 'infocards' are available from any of the council's Consumer Advice Centres." Dave Roderick further advised: "You don't have to go abroad to be at risk from skin cancer.

A study of Scots skin cancer patients found that 34 per cent have never been abroad but they had sunbathed at home. So whether you are lazing by the pool or on the beach, shopping or sightseeing, working or relaxing in the garden, playing or picknicking in the park, remember to stay safe in the sun and protect your skin from cancer. And it is important to report any changes to moles or any unusual marks or growths on your skin go your doctor right away.

Over a third of parents say their children have suffered sunburn, a survey reveals. The poll also reveals that 41% like to see their children with a tan. Cancer Research UK ,which commissioned the survey, said the findings showed many parents were failing to take skin cancer warnings seriously. The findings were published to mark a new public awareness campaign, which will see posters in nurseries, GP surgeries and outlets of Boots. The poster, created for Cancer Research UK's SunSmart campaign, has been designed to highlight how quickly children's skin can burn in the sun. It features the slogan "Kids Cook Quick" along with a picture of two sunburnt children sitting on the beach. Some 19,000 posters will be distributed across the UK.

"This poster has been created to help remind parents to protect their children," said campaign coordinator Sara Hiom. "Our survey shows that just over three-quarters of parents know that it's never OK for a child to go red in the sun, but they may not always realise that young skin can burn very quickly, in as little as 10 minutes. "Sometimes, even with the best intentions, we can be caught out. "We hope the Kids Cook Quick slogan will stick in parents' minds over the summer and remind them to make sure their children are properly protected whenever they are in the sun, by following the SunSmart code. "This means seeking shade in the middle of the day, covering up with a hat, t-shirt and sunglasses, as well as using sunscreen that is factor 15 or higher."

Dr Catherine Harwood, consultant dermatologist for Cancer Research UK, urged parents to cover children up when they are in the sun. "As children have much more opportunity to play and take part in sports and other outdoor activities, they spend far more time in the sun than adults. "Babies' and toddlers' skin is particularly susceptible as their skin is thinner and produces less protective pigment. "We get around 80% of our exposure to the sun before the age of 21. So it is vital that parents are aware of the dangers and know how to protect their children properly." The British Skin Foundation urged Britons to cover up during the summer. "We must take care of ourselves by covering up and using sunscreen with an SPF15 or above and SPF30 for children, especially on the triangle area between the nose, chin and ears where most tumours are found," said Dr Colin Holden, its spokesman.

Significant Opportunities for Anti-Cancer Immunotherapy Ad-IL2 Product Candidate-(AACR Annual Meeting-14/04/2004)

Transgene reported today the progress and encouraging data from its immunotherapy research and development program of Ad-IL2 that were presented in poster sessions at the 95th annual meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research (March 27-31, 2004) in Orlando, FL. Transgene's two posters presented data from the ongoing phase I/II clinical trial in patients with melanoma and other solid tumors as well as results from pre-clinical experiments in animal tumor models. "We were pleased to present these data at the A.A.C.R. annual meeting," stated Jean Francois Carmier, Chief Executive Officer of Transgene. "They indicate a promising potential for our Ad-IL2 cancer immunotherapy program.

In addition to the initial results in the clinic of Ad-IL2, our pre-clinical data from the combination with conventional therapies open up numerous therapeutic opportunities for this product candidate. We are in the process of preparing a Phase II trial for the beginning of next year." Phase I/II clinical trial: results encourage expansion of the trial The Ad-IL2 immunotherapy product candidate is being tested in patients with metastatic melanoma or with other advanced solid tumors accessible to intra-tumoral injection. To date a total of 26 patients, 17 suffering from melanoma and nine from other solid tumors, have received intra-tumoral administrations (2 to 19 injections) of Ad-IL2. All the patients included in the trial have progressive disease refractory to standard therapies.

Astex Technology and the Sanger Institute have joined two of the country's leading cancer research organisations in a drug discovery project aimed at combating skin and colon cancer. Scientists from the Cancer Genome Project (CGP) at Sanger, the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and Cancer Research Technology (CRT) will collaborate with Cambridge Science Park company Astex to identify and develop novel drug candidates for major indications in oncology using research garnered from the CGP. The world-class collaboration relates to the discovery of novel drugs against the cancer target BRAF, first identified as a key target implicated in a variety of cancers in 2002 when scientists from ICR and the CGP discovered that the gene was involved in several cancers, including 70 per cent of malignant melanomas, one of the deadliest forms of skin cancer. ICR, the Wellcome Trust and CRT began a collaboration in 2003 to identify BRAF inhibitors; now Astex will add expertise in fragment-based drug discovery to the collaboration.

The partners have established a joint research team whose expertise spans fragment-based drug discovery, cancer biology and the preclinical and clinical development of cancer drugs. Astex CSO and founder, Dr Harren Jhoti, said: "This is a world-class team in an important and exciting new therapeutic opportunity for cancer. We look forward to developing novel drugs targeted against BRAF and bringing these to the clinic quickly with the expert support of our collaborators." Dr Ted Bianco, technology transfer director at the Wellcome Trust, said: "There is excellent synergy between the collaborating parties. Astex's structure-based approach to drug discovery is highly complementary to the cancer therapeutic resources of the other parties. In partnership we can speed-up the drug development process and reach the clinic earlier."

Malignant melanoma usually occurs in individuals who have been exposed to the sun, x-rays, or ultraviolet (UV) light for prolonged periods. Although it accounts for just 11 per cent of skin cancers, it is responsible for almost all of its deaths. Incidence of malignant melanoma has doubled in the last decade, with worldwide estimates in excess of 100,000 per annum, and is responsible for more than 7,000 deaths in the US and 1,600 deaths in the UK each year. The CGP began after the mapping of the human genome was completed, looking at which of our 30,000 genes are involved in cancer. Preliminary evidence that the BRAF gene was mutated was found within the first 20 genes looked at; it was then studied in approximately 1,000 different cancer samples. BRAF was found to be mutated in about 70 per cent of malignant melanomas, 10 per cent of colon cancers and a smaller proportion of other cancer types.

The finding suggests sunscreens must protect against both UVA and UVB rays to provide proper protection. University of Sydney researchers found UVA rays - which age the skin, but do not burn - can cause DNA damage. The study, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, contradicts the view that UVB rays alone pose a cancer risk. Experts had thought that UBA rays pose less of a problem, because, although they penetrate deeper than the shorter wavelength UVB ways that cause sunburn, they were thought to have less impact on DNA. However, the Australian researchers who examined skin tumours found evidence that UVA rays had damaged cells in the deep basal keratinocyte cell layer. The basal layer contains the mother cells that ensure continual regeneration of the skin through cell division But the researchers believe that UVB damage may be enough to make skin cells migrating out from this region highly vulnerable to cancer.The researchers, led by Dr Gary Halliday, wrote: "The predominance of UVA mutations in the basal cell layer reinforces the pivotal role UVA may play in the malignant transformation of human skin. "The importance of protecting the population not just from UVB but also from UVA irradiation has profound implications on public health worldwide."

The scientists examined tissue samples from 16 patients being treated for two different types of skin cancer at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Camperdown, Australia. Both types of cancer showed greater signs of basal skin layer damage from UVA than UVB rays. The vast majority of UVB mutations were in the outer layers of the skin. They said the widespread use of UVB-blocking sunscreens in Australia may have led to increased exposure to UVA. Dr Catherine Harwood, a dermatologist at Cancer Research UK, said: "This is an important paper which adds new data to the growing body of evidence pointing to a significant role for UVA in the development of skin cancer. "Although experimentally very thorough it is still a relatively small study, and the findings now need to be confirmed in similar larger scale studies. "As the authors point out, confirmation of such a role for UVA may have major implications for public health initiatives to prevent skin cancer, as it becomes increasingly clear that the protection from both UVA as well as UVB is essential."

People aged under 16 could be banned from tanning salons, and coin-operated outlets could be closed, under new proposals for the industry. Cancer Research UK's new partnership with tanning salons is aiming to squeeze "rogue salons" out of the business. For the first time, the charity has formally united with the Sunbed Association, the watchdog which represents around 2000 parlours in the UK, in an effort to promote self regulation within the sunbed sector. Skin cancer experts yesterday agreed that regulation, rather than an outright ban, was the most effective way to minimise the risks of sunbed use, which is believed to cause nearly 100 cases of melanoma in the UK each year. Sara Hiom, who co-ordinates Cancer Research UK's SunSmart campaign, said the charity hoped the partnership would encourage sunbed users to visit parlours which are SA members and must comply with the organisation's code of practice, rather than non-members which are not obliged to follow safety guidelines. She said: "We are in talks because we don't see legislation as the answer."

Until the negotiations with the Sunbed Association, the charity has taken a hard line stance against the tanning industry. However, Ms Hiom denied claims that the charity's softer approach would undermine its warnings of the dangers posed by sunbed use. She said: "The last thing we are doing is endorsing sunbed use, and we have to be careful we make that clear. "You have to accept that, no matter what you say, some people will continue to risk using sunbeds. It is early days, but this is an alternative worth exploring."

With 70,000 cases of skin cancer diagnosed in Britain each year, Cancer Research UK and the Sunbed Association agreed plans to stop sunbeds being used by the under-16s. They also called for coin-operated salons to be shut down and want to see Europe-wide guidelines introduced for all other tanning businesses. Both groups will take their plans forward at a summit later this month. Although the watchdog represents only a quarter of the tanning facilities in the UK, it hopes that the new strategy will encourage more operators working to its code.

Professor James Ferguson, a specialist in ultraviolet skin diseases at the photobiology unit at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee, said the need for regulation was greater than ever. He said: "There is an epidemic in skin cancer and there is no doubt that artificial sources, such as sunbed parlours, have contributed to that. "It is a move in the right direction. Banning is not feasible and I would welcome any move towards self-regulation. "You can't tell people not to do it, but what we need is regulation, education and control. A lot of people who use sunbeds are in the younger end of the population and don't realise the consequences. "Like cigarettes and alcohol, there should be an age limit. Parental consent or accompanying adult would be sensible." The British Medical Association also approve of self-regulation as the best option.

The common cold virus most people try their hardest to avoid is very likely to be the cure for malignant melanoma, Australian scientists have discovered in a major breakthrough announced hereA team of researchers at the University of Newcastle believe they have made an exciting discovery in the treatment of the usually deadly skin cancer of which Australia, with its hot sun, has the highest rate in the world for its fair-skinned populace. "We have established that melanoma cells can be destroyed by infecting them with a common cold virus," the lead researcher, associate professor Darren Shafren said. "We believe this is a significant break-through in the development of the treatment of melanoma. We are very excited about it." "The results we have had using human cells and also in animal studies have been very exciting. If we can replicate this success in human trials then it could be available within a year or two." The research has just been published as the cover story in the January 2004 edition of Clinical Cancer Research, the journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

Skin cancer is so common here that it would be of huge benefit in a country in which one in every two people will develop some form of the disease at some stage. Some 300,000 Australians will visit a doctor this year to have a skin cancer removed. Almost 9000 new cases of melanoma are diagnosed each year, about 1000 Australians die of melanoma, which is the fifth most common form of cancer. The projected process involves injecting the common cold virus, the coxsackievirus, into the melanoma site, the virus replicates itself and is expected then to start to kill off the melanoma. Shafron says that within weeks, there is a reduction in the size of the melanoma and it eventually disappears. "When the secondary action begins, we expect the virus to circulate the body finding and killing off melanomas in the same manner with the effect that it will seek out and kill melanomas that may be undetectable," he added. "This is a community occurring virus, not a manufactured drug or a genetically altered virus. We believe it could even be effective for people with advanced melanoma." The work, based on technology developed by the picornavirus department at the university over the past four years, is being conducted at the local biotechnology company ViroTarg's laboratory in the Royal Newcastle Hospital 150 kilometres (95 miles) north of Sydney.

Although sunscreen lotions were designed to shield people from the sun's harmful rays, recent studies have hinted that sunscreen use might actually increase the odds of developing melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. However, a new report shows that people who regularly slather on the lotion can rest easy. After reviewing the findings from 18 studies published between 1966 and 2003, investigators at the University of Iowa in Iowa City found no convincing evidence that using sunscreen does anything to increase the risk of melanoma. All of the studies included in the analysis compared sunscreen habits of people diagnosed with melanoma to others who were cancer-free. The report responds to a handful of recent studies that showed that people who used sunscreen were more likely than people who didn't to develop melanoma. Study author Dr. Leslie K. Dennis explained that her review showed that most of the previous studies that reported an increased risk of melanoma among sunscreen users did not account for the fact that people who are most at risk for melanoma - such as those with fair skin who burn easily - are also more likely to use sunscreen. Consequently, many sunscreen users are more likely to develop cancer because of their skin, and not because of their use of protective lotions, she noted. "Sunscreens do not cause skin cancer," Dennis told Reuters Health.

The review, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, also failed to show that using sunscreen reduced the risk of melanoma. Dennis noted that many of the people included in the 18 studies had used older forms of sunscreen, manufactured before the development of features such as sun protection factor (SPF), water-resistance and blockers against different types of ultraviolet radiation. For instance, research has shown that ultraviolet A radiation may be more likely to trigger melanoma than ultraviolet B, and sunscreens did not start including certain ultraviolet A-absorbing compounds until 1989. Dennis said that she believed newer sunscreens do, in fact, protect people against melanoma and other types of skin cancer, but that it may take many more years before those benefits become apparent.

"A protective effect of sunscreen use is not likely to be seen until these newer features have been used for at least ten years," she noted. Dennis and her colleagues write that investigations into sunscreen's ability to protect against melanoma may be further muddied by the fact that some people use sunscreen in order to stay out longer in the sun, which can itself increase the risk of cancer. They add that sunscreen likely works best when used correctly, and people looking to protect themselves from sun's harmful rays should make sure to spend some time in the shade, use enough sunscreen, apply it evenly and opt only for types that contain an SPF greater than 15. For Dennis, the bottom line for sunscreen users is simple: keep using it.

Treatment with low-dose interferon does not seem to improve the survival of patients who've undergone surgery for melanoma, an often-deadly type of skin cancer, new research suggests. "Questions remain as to whether (the drug works well enough) to justify routine use," the investigators conclude. "After many years of clinical research, there is good evidence that high-dose interferon (helps prevent disease recurrences), but no clear evidence of the benefit to overall survival," lead author Dr. Barry Hancock, from the University of Sheffield in the UK, noted in a statement. In the current study, Hancock's group assessed the outcomes of 674 patients who had their melanomas surgically removed and then received either interferon or no further treatment for two years or until their cancer returned. All of the patients had "high-risk" melanomas based on the severity of their cancer. The results are published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The five-year overall and recurrence-free survival rates were 44 percent and 32 percent, respectively, and the rates did not differ much between the two study groups. Moreover, this held true when the groups were compared by disease severity, age and sex. Predictors of decreased overall survival included male gender and cancer spread to nearby lymph nodes. In contrast, age was not an important prognostic factor. Although severe interferon-related toxicities were relatively rare, 50 patients did withdraw from treatment due to the toxic effects, the researchers point out. "This study confirms that optimal care for patients with high-risk melanoma is still not clear," Dr. Lynn Schuchter, author of an accompanying editorial, said in a statement. "The challenge now is to go beyond these results -- to develop more innovative and efficient (studies), and better identify those patients at risk of recurrence based upon...genetic factors," Schuchter, from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, added.

Skin Cancer Melanoma Rare in Children Treated with Radiation-(Reuters Health-28/11/2003)

Radiation treatments for childhood cancers are unlikely to lead to malignant melanoma, according to a new study. Certain long-term studies have suggested that as many as 10 percent of childhood cancer survivors may subsequently develop tumors, and there also have been reports of an increase in childhood and adolescent melanomas. However, following the study, Dr. Florent de Vathaire, of the National Institute of Public Health and Medical Research, Villejuif, France said, "our conclusion is that radiation-induced melanoma exists as a complication of, but is rare." Led by de Vathaire, the researchers studied about 30,000 children treated for a cancer from Nordic countries, the UK and France. The results are reported in the November issue of the European Journal of Cancer. They found that as children survive longer after cancer, the risk of subsequent cancers increases. However, there were only 16 cases of malignant melanoma in about 20 years, and those occurred only in areas of the skin that had received large doses of radiation. Thus, de Vathaire concluded, radiotherapy "may not be considered as a public health problem for survivors of a childhood cancer."

A new set of studies adds to evidence that flight crews face an increased occupational risk of developing cancer. Three studies, using data from air crews in two Nordic countries and involving several thousand cabin crew members, all point to an increased risk associated with working for long periods above the clouds. In one study, researchers from Iceland studied cabin crews for malignant melanoma, one of the most deadly and aggressive skin cancers. They surveyed more than 1,000 pilots and cabin attendants and 2,000 others randomly selected from the general population, asking about physical and lifestyle risk factors. They found men who flew for a living doubled their chances of developing the condition, and women were at 3.5 times the increased risk.

"While there have been other studies that have shown higher incidences of skin cancer in air crews, this is one of the first to try to adjust for sunbathing and other lifestyle factors," says study author Dr. Vilhjalmur Rafnsson, a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Iceland. "And it shows that occupational risks are indeed a significant factor.All our routes here are in higher exposure zones, which are about double that of the equator, and that is important. Many people say that the amount of radiation is not a lot, but cosmic radiation has significantly greater amounts of neutron activity. There is a lot of uncertainty about the effects of these neutrons, which are more biologically active than other types of ionizing neutrons."

Another Icelandic study of more than 1,500 female flight attendants, 35 of whom went on to develop breast cancer, also suggests that the occupation may be an significant factor in that disease as well. Researchers in that study, which looked at more than 40 years of flying crew data, found women crew members who had worked in those positions for five or more years before 1971 were five times as likely to develop breast cancer as those who had been in service for less time before this date. The association remained after adjusting for reproductive factors.

And a Swedish study found that while the overall incidence of cancer was only slightly higher than the general population, incidences of malignant melanoma among both male and female cabin crew was two to three times higher. Moreover, it also discovered additional increases in incidences of other skin cancers among the male flight crew. However, while that study found female flight attendants had a 30 percent increased risk of breast cancer, this was not statistically significant when adjusted, and researchers could not find any link between length of employment or cumulative hours worked. This led them to question whether other factors, such as reproductive patterns, might be contributory factors. "While we don't have the confidence that this higher rate is related directly to occupational factors," says study author Dr. Anette Linnersjö, of the Stockholm Center of Public Health, "it probably is a real increase because other studies showed similar results. It could also be explained by time lag or disruption of the body's rhythm. We haven't enough data on exposure."

Researchers found that jet planes, which gained prevalence after 1971, fly higher in the atmosphere and for longer periods of time, routinely exposing crews to cosmic radiation for long periods -- often 14 hours or more at a time. In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Elizabeth Whelan of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wrote the average amount of exposure to ionizing radiation has increased over time due to this trend. She went on to suggest that irregular working hours and disturbances to the body's internal clock could also play a role in predisposing some to ill health. "But the question still remains whether the increased risk found in these studies is due to work or lifestyle factors," she wrote. "The research does not yet provide definitive answers." Nevertheless, Whelan concluded: "The evidence that flight crew are at increased risk for certain types of cancer is growing, and current concerns about potential hazards in this occupation are not without basis." The findings appear in the November issue of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

To help prevent skin cancer, schoolchildren should be taught to take cover from the sun by wearing hats and other protective clothing, new guidelines advise. Schools, recreational areas and tourist attractions are all good places to get out the skin cancer prevention message, according to the Task Force on Community Preventive Services. Faced with rising rates of skin cancer in the U.S., the independent panel, which is supported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, reviewed published research to find out what programs are effective at getting people to "cover up" to protect themselves from the sun. The task force found that skin cancer prevention efforts at grade schools and recreational locations, such as public swimming pools, are effective.

One aim of the report was to help public officials "try to concentrate on things that have been shown to work," said Dr. Mona Saraiya, a medical epidemiologist at the CDC's division of cancer prevention and control. She told Reuters Health that more research is needed to test the effectiveness of prevention efforts in other locations, including child care centers, high schools and colleges, workplaces and media and community awareness programs. "That doesn't mean that they don't work," she said, just that they have not been studied enough.

Cases of melanoma, the rarest but most dangerous form of skin cancer, have increased dramatically during the past two decades, as have deaths from the disease. The CDC predicts that more than 54,000 people will be diagnosed with melanoma this year, and 7,600 people will die from it this year. The CDC estimates that there will be more than 1 million new cases of the other two main skin cancers, basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma. Despite the rise in skin cancer, surveys have found that only about one out of every three Americans takes steps to reduce sun exposure. Anyone can develop skin cancer, but factors that increase the risk include a family history of the cancer, fair skin and red or blonde hair. People who burn easily and do not tan are also more susceptible to skin cancer.

Although sunscreens can reduce exposure to the ultraviolet (UV) radiation that is linked to cancer, slathering on some lotion is not enough for preventing skin cancer, according to experts. In fact, some studies suggest that sunscreen use can be harmful if people spend more time in the sun because they feel protected, according to the report. In addition to sunscreen, other ways to minimize UV exposure include wearing wide-brimmed hats, long sleeve shirts and long pants, and sunglasses that block UV rays. Staying in the shade and avoiding the sun when its rays are strongest -- between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. -- are also recommended. The guidelines, which appear in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, are being released in conjunction with a recommendation put together by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. That group concludes that there is insufficient evidence to evaluate the effectiveness of doctors at encouraging patients to reduce sunlight exposure. "Counseling parents may increase the use of sunscreen for children, but there is little evidence to determine the effects of counseling on other preventive behaviors," the report concludes.

In patients with a history of skin cancer other than melanoma, the use of selenium supplements does not appear to prevent the recurrence of two other types of skin cancer--basal cell and squamous cell cancer--and may actually raise the risk of squamous cell cancer, new research suggests. The initial results from the Nutritional Prevention of Cancer Trial reported in 1996 showed that selenium use did not influence the rate of nonmelanoma skin cancer in individuals who were at risk for this type of cancer. However, the new findings, which are based on three additional years of follow-up, suggest that use of the selenium, an antioxidant, may promote certain cancers. These findings run counter to the results of animal studies that indicate a protective effect for selenium and other antioxidants.

The study, reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, involved 1312 patients with a history of nonmelanoma skin cancer who were randomly assigned to receive daily supplementation with selenium 200 micrograms or placebo ("sugar pill"). In agreement with the initial results, selenium use was not associated with the risk of basal cell cancer, study author Dr. James R. Marshall, from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, and colleagues note. However, use of the antioxidant seemed to raise the risk of squamous cell cancer, the researchers state. Selenium users were 25% more likely to develop this malignancy than nonusers. These findings should be viewed along with the overall impact of selenium supplementation as a potential cancer-preventing agent, the authors note. Prostate cancer prevention trials that are now underway, including one testing selenium supplementation in men with precancerous cells in the prostate, "will help to clarify this overall impact," they add.

Aspirin might help treat a rare form of cancer that causes huge mushroom-shaped tumors to grow out of the body's hair follicles and sweat glands, scientists said. Writing in the medical journal Nature, the scientists said aspirin's anti-inflammatory properties could help combat cylindromatosis, an inherited form of skin cancer also known as turban tumor syndrome. People who have the syndrome suffer from inflamed skin tissue which releases a host of molecules that may help keep cancer cells alive, they said. Aspirin reduces the inflammation and therefore might help to starve the cancer cells. The research is contained in three studies carried out independently in the Netherlands, Greece and Israel. All three are published in Nature. George Mosialos, head of the Greek team, said the research might also prove useful for the treatment of other types of cancer. "It could be used for certain types of leukemia and lymphomas." Mosialos told Reuters.

Cylindromatosis produces distinctive mushroom-shaped tumors which grow out of the scalp and other hairy parts of the body. While the tumors are benign, they can cause terrible disfigurement and, if untreated, can turn into life-threatening malignant cancers. "It's important that we put the theory to test in patients as soon as we can," Cancer Research UK's Professor Alan Ashworth said in a statement. "In the case of turban tumor syndrome, we think anti-inflammatory drugs could be rubbed into tumors in gel form in order to shrink them," he said. "We know inflammation can play a role in the development of a number of other cancers too, so it could be that aspirin will find a range of uses as a cancer treatment."

A University of Minnesota study has confirmed the pivotal role of an enzyme known as JNK2 in the development of nonmelanoma skin cancers. The findings suggest that JNK2 should be evaluated as a target for the prevention and treatment of such cancers. Lead author Zigang Dong, director of the university's Hormel Institute in Austin, Minn., presented the work on July 13, 2003, at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting in Washington, D.C. Ultraviolet rays from the sun are the major culprit in skin cancer, which accounts for more than half the cancers in the United States. The process of cancer development involves a chain of interactions among biochemicals in the skin, and biochemicals that play key roles in carcinogenesis make potential therapeutic targets.

Many human cancers show elevated activity in some form of JNK enzyme, and the enzyme is also activated by sunlight, Dong said. "Even if one goes into the sun for a few minutes, the activity of JNK in the epidermis rises," said Dong. "If you go out for a few minutes, JNK activity doesn't stay elevated. But it looks as though if a person gets too much sun exposure, JNK activity becomes permanently elevated and cancers develop. This study indicates that some form of JNK activity is a key step in the process by which nonmelanoma cancers grow." Working with mice, Dong and his colleagues focused on two enzymes known to be activated by factors that cause cells to divide and that have been considered important in skin cells' response to UV light.

Of the two enzymes, called JNK1 and JNK2, only the latter turned out to play an important role in the development of tumors. The researchers used two lines of mice that had been rendered enzyme-deficient by inactivation of the gene for either JNK1 or JNK2 in fertilized mouse eggs. When the mice were two months old, the scientists applied a chemical carcinogen to the skin of their backs, followed by five-times-a-week exposure to UVB light, the ultraviolet light that causes skin cancer. At 31 weeks of age, a much smaller percentage of JNK2-deficient mice had tumors (18 percent), compared to control mice (48 percent) or JNK1-lacking mice (50 percent). At 40 weeks of age, the percentage of tumor-bearing JNK2-deficient mice had almost doubled, to 35 percent, while the percentage rose more slowly in control mice (to 56 percent) and JNK1-deficient mice (to 73 percent). The data suggest that when JNK2 is lacking, skin cells are inhibited, or at least delayed, in their response to UVB light. "Knocking out the JNK2 enzyme could simply delay the response to ultraviolet light, but if so, it would be significant," Dong said. "If we age enough, every one of us will get cancer. But if we can delay the process, that's good progress." The researchers also studied the biochemistry of skin and embryonic cells from the mice. They found that UVB light and a chemical known to promote tumor formation induced biochemical activity associated with cell division and tumor growth in control mice and JNK1-deficient mice, but not in JNK2-deficient mice.

Australia close to perfecting anti-melanoma treatment, vaccine-(AFP-23/06/2003)

A melanoma treatment developed in Australia could be available within five years after a number of terminal patients had been declared free of the disease in early trials. Queensland's state government said phase three trials of an anti-melanoma vaccine, the final hurdle before the product could be registered, were now under way. The development was unveiled by Queensland's state premier Peter Beattie to a Washington medical conference and in a statement released here simultaneously. The treatment had the potential to prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths around the world, he said.

Queensland, which boasts that it is Australia's "sunshine state", has the highest rates of melanoma in a country with one of the worst rates of the cancer in the world because of its largely light-skinned European population and a climate which ranges from warm in the south to tropical in the north. One in 25 Queenslanders reportedly develop melanoma at some stage during their lifetime. Beattie said Queensland was now "leading the way in the global race to find a treatment for this very malignant skin cancer". The human trials follow recent registration by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, Australia's drug regulator, allowing the Queensland Institute of Medical Research to produce and supply drugs for use in phase one, two and three trials. The trial's principal investigator, Chris Schmidt, said the latest placebo-controlled trial would treat 200 patients with melanoma from around Queensland. Schmidt said researchers hoped to have the results of the trial within five years. "Depending on the results, the anti-melanoma vaccine could be available in hospitals shortly afterwards," he said. He said even with surgery, 75 percent of melanoma patients with disease which had spread to other parts of the body, relapsed to the terminal stage.

Childhood Sunburn Can Lead to Skin Cancer Later-(HealthScoutNews-08/06/2003)

Most parents wouldn't dream of handing their children a dangerous toy or feeding them tainted food. Yet, many otherwise loving and caring parents put their kid's lives at risk simply by sending them outdoors to play in the summer sun. The reason is skin cancer. And experts say that if you let your children spend even a short amount of time outside without protection from the sun, you're increasing their risks of this disease by a generous proportion. "Anytime you get a sunburn, at any age, your risk of skin cancer goes up. But get that burn before the age of 18, and your risks go up dramatically -- and the more times a child experiences sunburn or even sun damage caused by a tan, the greater their future risk of skin cancer," says Dr. Darrell Rigel, a dermatologist from New York University Medical Center.

One reason, Rigel says, is the cancer-causing effects of the sun are cumulative. Simply put, the earlier that sun damage to the skin starts -- which can happen with a tan as well as a burn -- the more likely your child is to reach the level of cellular damage that translates into skin cancer. But that's not the only reason children need to be protected from the sun. Because a child's immune system is not fully developed, Rigel says, they don't have the kind of biochemical defense mechanism that normally helps an adult's body catch at least some of the cells damaged by the sun and repair them before cancer has a chance to develop. "As a result, over time those cells damaged in childhood become an adult skin cancer," Rigel says.

Earlier this year, research conducted at Harvard's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston was even more specific in pinpointing the dangers to children. According to Dr. Lynda Chin, it may all come down to the recently discovered Rb pathway -- a series of biochemical signals that can sense when damage occurs in a skin cell and immediately shut down its ability to duplicate itself. "In this way, the Rb pathway can help stop tumors from forming," says Chin, an assistant professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School. However, the more sun exposure you have, particularly at a young age, the more likely it is the Rb pathway will become damaged and no long able to sense when a skin cell is in trouble. Essentially, "the suns rays inactivate the built-in protection, allowing melanoma to grow," Chin says.Indeed, the American Academy of Dermatology confirms that nearly two-thirds of all melanoma skin cancers are related to sun exposure, and up to 80 percent of that exposure usually occurs during childhood. The American Cancer Society estimates that more than 54,000 new cases of melanoma skin cancer will be diagnosed in 2003, and some 7,600 new deaths will occur from this disease this year.

One way to protect your children is to make certain they wear a sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of at least 15, and to make sure they use the product correctly. "This means using enough sunscreen to cover all exposed areas of the body, and putting it on at least 30 minutes before going outside," says Dr. Ted Daly, a dermatologist at Nassau University Medical Center in New York. "Sometimes, we recommend a number 30 sunscreen because people generally put on less than they should," Daly says. So, even if you're stingy with your application of SPF 30, you'll still get the benefits of SPF 15 wherever the sunscreen is applied. Daly also reminds parents to make certain children reapply sunscreen after bathing, or after participating in any activity that can cause them to sweat off the protection.

Although parents are often present when a young child goes outdoors, experts suggest this may not be the case as the child grows older. No longer under your watchful eye, skipping a sunscreen can be far too easy -- particularly at sporting events or summer camp. The solution: Teach your children well, beginning as early as possible, about the need for sunscreen. "It's not enough to just put the sunscreen on your child, you have to also teach them about sun protection so, as they get a little older, they'll remember to keep on using it -- even when you're not around to remind them," Daly says. Although sunscreen can go a long way in protecting your child, experts from the American Academy of Dermatology say it won't do the whole job. Both Daly and Rigel urge parents to enlist at least one other form of protection for their children, including hats, sunglasses and T-shirts, particularly at the beach. Also, remember that sunburns can happen in the shade of a beach umbrella, or even on a cloudy day. So keep a keen eye on any color changes in your children's skin while they're outdoors. "It can take up to 12 hours for a sunburn to become apparent, so a child that looks a little pink in the afternoon might end up with a red sunburn by the next morning," Rigel says. So, he says, get them indoors the minute you see a change in skin color.

Melanoma is all too often a deadly disease. While it accounts for less than 5% of all skin cancers, it is responsible for more than 75% of skin cancer deaths. This is because it is very difficult to treat once it has spread beyond where it started. But the knowledge gained over the past few decades may soon lead to new, more effective forms of treatment for the disease. Most of these new treatments, such as cancer vaccines now in development, try to use the body's immune system to attack the cancer cells. Immunotherapy has thus far had a limited role in treating cancer, but it is one of the most promising areas of cancer research, especially in melanoma.

This cancer seems to be especially well suited for research with immunotherapy treatments for several reasons:

· Once it has spread, the survival rates are low, largely because melanoma does not respond well to traditional therapies such as radiation and chemotherapy.
· There is some evidence that melanoma tumors can be controlled by the immune system. For example, in rare cases melanomas have been known to simply go away on their own. Most scientists think this is due to some type of immune reaction against the cancer.
· Two of the more effective treatments now used for melanoma, interferon alpha and interleukin-2, work by revving up the patient's immune system, and cause tumor shrinkage in a small percentage of advanced melanomas. With these factors in mind, researchers have been trying to make vaccines against melanoma for many years, often with mixed results.

What Is a Cancer Vaccine? Most people are familiar with the vaccines given during childhood to prevent certain diseases, such as measles and mumps. These vaccines work by teaching the body's immune system to recognize a specific invader, such as a virus, so the body can resist infection if exposed to it in the future. Cancer vaccines operate on the same principle, attempting to prime the immune system to combat a disease. But there are some important differences. Most cancer vaccines now in development are not meant to prevent disease, but to stop it from returning after most or all of it has been removed during surgery. Viruses and bacteria look very different from cells in the body, so the immune system has a relatively easy time recognizing them as "foreign." It knows they don't belong in the body, so it doesn't take much prodding to stimulate an attack on these organisms. Cancer cells, on the other hand, look a lot like normal cells, so the immune system has a harder time distinguishing between the two. The trick is to find something different about the cancer cells and make the immune system aware of this. But this has not proved to be an easy task. Scientists have used a variety of techniques to try to get the immune system to attack melanoma cells, and each has its advantages and disadvantages.

Whole Cell Vaccines: The simplest technique has been to use whole, killed melanoma cells as a vaccine. There are two possible sources of such cells. The vaccine can be made from a person's own melanoma cells (removed during surgery), which is known as an autologous vaccine. These have the advantage of having all of the needed "flags" (antigens) on the cell surfaces to cause the immune system to respond. But because the immune system has already seen these cells and has not killed them off, they have to be chemically modified and usually must be given along with an immune booster to make them more effective. Other disadvantages with such personalized vaccines include the expense to make them, and the fact that some people do not have enough cells removed during surgery to make an adequate amount of vaccine. Still, early results have shown that some people seem to live longer when given the vaccine. At least one such vaccine, known as M-VAX, is now in late-stage clinical trials, the results of which should be available within the next few years.

The other sources of tumor cell vaccines are melanoma cells taken either from other patients or grown in a lab. These are known as allogeneic vaccines. Two such vaccines are now in large clinical trials - Canvaxin (which combines three types of irradiated melanoma cells) and Melacine (which uses two types of melanoma cells that have been split apart to expose more antigens). A recent review of previous studies of Canvaxin showed it may increase survival time. The largest study of Melacine to date did not find an overall survival advantage, but did find a benefit in people with specific immune system characteristics, which may be explored in further studies.

Newer Vaccines: In the last decade, scientists have come to understand more about what makes melanoma cells different from other cells, as well as about how the immune system works. These discoveries have led to newer, more specific types of vaccines, which are now entering clinical trials. Many of the "flags" on cell surfaces (known as antigens) that are unique to melanoma cells have been identified, and researchers are now making vaccines composed of one or more of these antigens. These might have the advantage of more specifically activating the immune system. (Whole cell vaccines, on the other hand, may not have enough of these antigens, and have many unneeded antigens.) Other vaccines use pieces of antigen DNA, which are taken up by cells in the body and provide a more constant source of antigen exposure to the immune system. Still others involve taking immune system cells out of the body, where they can be exposed to the antigens in the lab and then reintroduced into the body. Most of these vaccines use dendritic cells, which are a very powerful type of immune system cell. Researchers recently had success with a similar technique that involved taking immune system cells known as tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) from surgically removed tumors, growing them in the lab, and reinjecting them. While only a small number of patients were treated with this approach, almost all had their tumors shrink.

Promising But Not Yet Ready: Unfortunately, no vaccine has yet received FDA approval for treating melanoma, so these therapies are currently available only through clinical trials. But with the wealth of new techniques being explored to help treat melanoma, the outlook for advanced cases will undoubtedly improve.

Outdoor Exercise Can Be Dangerous: Doctors are always touting the benefits of exercise. But there can be a downside, if you like to exercise outside -- exposure to the sun can lead to skin cancer. Skin cancer is more common in Texas than many other states. Doctors said that the reason is simple. The closer you get to the equator, the more damage the sun can do. Time is also an issue. From 10 a.m. until 2 p.m., the sun is right overhead, which means the rays are more intense. So doctors advise that people should take precautions when exercising outside. The right clothing can make a big difference. "Clothing you can't see the sunlight through is better than thinner clothing you can see through," said Dr. Jeffery Lee, with M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Dark and bright colors are better than pale ones since they absorb UV rays, according to experts. "The brighteners in our detergents are probably good because they also increase the amount of UV radiation absorbed by clothing and reduce the risk," Lee said.

But prevention is only the beginning, doctors said. Having someone literally watch your back may be the thing that saves your life. "The buddy system is good, you know, especially people who have experienced what we have been through," said Brad Bowers, who had skin cancer. A friend of Bowers pointed out a mole on his back that turned out to be melanoma. "Every time we have a blistering sunburn before the age of 18, we increase the chance we will develop melanoma," Lee said. The cancer was successfully removed from Bowers. But he knows to be careful since melanoma has a high reoccurrence rate. Half of those who reach 65 years of age will get skin cancer, according to statistics.

Sunscreen Important For Protection: Skin cancer is the leading killer of people in their 20s and 30s, according to doctors. In fact, many physicians said that they are seeing more cases of skin cancer in younger patients. Melanie Gould was diagnosed with the disease when she was 14 years old. Now, the letters "SPF" have an important meaning for her. SPF stands for sun protection factor. She has to wear it at all times. "It has become something I do on a regular basis with moisturizer and lotion on my arms and legs," Gould said. The skin cancer was found when Gould went in to have a mole removed from her leg. "I have never heard of anyone having skin cancer at such a young age and I just thought that old people had it and it was just something that got sliced off at the dermatologists and that was it. It was a huge shock," Gould said. Remembering to wear sunscreen daily has become a lot easier since so many products include it. Sunscreen was added to products for other reasons than preventing prevent skin cancer, according to cosmetic industry experts. Jennifer Phillips is Nordstrom's skin care manager. She said that sunscreen helps fight the effects of aging. "It is in your moisturizer. It is in your foundation," Phillips said. Newer products on the market make it easier to get a tan without sun damage. It's a tan in the bottle.

Dr. Paul Mansfield, with M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, said that he would like to see fewer people hitting tanning beds. "I mean, it is deadly and it is just something you should be concerned about. So wear some sunscreen and cover up and don't go to tanning beds," Mansfield said.

Use Buddy To Find Problems: One in six people will be diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma in their lifetime. One in 75 will face melanoma. When it comes to protecting yourself against skin cancer, a buddy can be your best bet, according to doctors. The reason is because the cancer often grows where you cannot see it. Richard Broderick's wife noticed his. "There is a mole on my back my wife noticed," Broderick said. "It can be found anywhere on your skin. Not just on your face or arms -- areas that are exposed. And I think that is an important myth to dispel," said Dr. Ronald Rapini, with M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. On men, skin cancer is most commonly found on the back. That's where Dustin Gragg, 22, found his. "It kind of itched and I'd go scratch. I would use the corner of a wall to scratch my back because I couldn't reach it," Gragg said. On women, melanoma is most commonly found on the lower leg. "So people think it is going to be in the sun-exposed areas but melanoma is commonly in a covered-up area," Rapini said.

Another often-overlooked trouble spot is underneath hair. Research found that while 80 percent of the more benign skin cancers, called basal and squamous cell, turn up in sun-exposed areas, the more deadly type of skin cancer appears where covered areas or pale skin is exposed to large amounts of sun. Approximately 20 percent of people diagnosed with melanoma die, so early detection is the key to beating this type of cancer, doctors said. Many of the patients checked at M.D. Anderson's Melanoma Skin Center said that they were encouraged or even nagged to visit the doctor by their "buddy." For many, it saved their lives.

Skin Cancer Affects All Skin Colors: One of the myths of skin cancer is that people of color do not get the disease. It's a deadly mistake, according to doctors. Patrick Robertson, who is African American, first noticed a dark spot on his foot while he was in the eighth grade. But it did not start growing until three years ago. "It slowly got bigger over the years. Then it got thick," Robertson said. Now, Robertson has a melanoma the size of a golf ball on his foot, which spread to his lymph nodes. "I used to say, 'Oh nothing's wrong. It is going to go away.' But shoot, it turned out to be melanoma," Robertson said. Like many African Americans, Hispanics and Asians, he did not think he could get skin cancer. "They think because they belong in the Hispanic group or Asian group, they (have) no risk for skin cancer. They are at lower risk of skin cancer, but it does not imply zero risk," said Dr. Tri Nguyen, with M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Since it is more rare for minorities to get skin cancer, patients tend to come in when the cancer is in a later stage, according to doctors. "They are found at later stages. They have a high mortality and a worse prognosis for all types of skin cancer, but especially melanoma," Nguyen said. Another problem -- skin cancer in minorities can look different and is typically found in different areas of the body, according to doctors. "(It's important) to exam fingers and toes -- areas you wouldn't think you would get skin cancer," Nguyen said. But doctors said that the biggest obstacle is cultural. Hispanics and Asians often don't believe they are sick unless they have symptoms. But skin cancer doesn't have any symptoms until it spreads.

Five patients who developed skin cancer after an organ transplant may have received cancer seed cells from the donor, researchers report. The cancer, Kaposi's sarcoma, is caused by a virus that the body usually can eliminate. It has become associated with the AIDS epidemic because the virus affects people with weakened immune systems. Kaposi's sarcoma appears in about one out of every 200 transplant recipients - 400 to 500 times the rate of the general population. It had been thought the virus was able to take hold in these patients because their immune systems were suppressed to prevent rejection of the new organ.

But a European research team has found evidence that, at least in some transplant patients, seed cells for the cancer tumors seem to have originated in the organ donor. The findings of the team led by Patrizia Barozzi and Mario Luppi of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Modena, Italy, are reported in the journal Nature Medicine.The study shows that "tumor cells from the organ donor can contribute to one of the most frequent transplant-related malignancies," Patrick S. Moore of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute said in an accompanying article. He was not part of the research team.

Weeks ago, Scottish doctors reported on two cases of patients developing the skin cancer melanoma from transplanted kidneys even though the donor was successfully treated for the cancer many years earlier. Transfer of cancer from a donated organ to a transplant patient is rare, and the chances of it happening long after the donor was treated were thought to be extremely unlikely. In the cases involving Kaposi's sarcoma, researchers studied eight patients - six women and two men - who received kidneys from male donors and who developed Kaposi's sarcoma nine months to 40 months later.

In analyzing the cancer cells from the women, the researchers detected Y-chromosome DNA in four cases. DNA is the molecule that determines a human's development. Women have two X-chromosomes while men have one X- and one Y-chromosome. Thus, the presence of the Y-chromosome DNA in the women's cancer indicates that the cells originated with a male. There was no evidence of Y-chromosomes in the cancer in the other two women or in normal cells from any of the women. Using DNA analysis of the cancer cells in the men, the researchers found that in one case the cancer DNA was related to that of the donor. Kaposi's sarcoma can be treated by reducing or ending the suppression of the patient's immune system, allowing it to battle the cancer. That also can mean the immune system attacks the transplanted organ, causing it to be rejected. Moore noted that the organ donors had no symptoms of Kaposi's sarcoma, which suggests they are infected with the cancer-causing virus but that their bodies destroy the cancer cells when they form. Once the infected organ is transplanted into someone with a weakened immune system, however, the cancer cells can grow and cause disease.

Australia has a higher rate of the most deadly form of skin cancer but more people in Britain die of the disease each year, cancer experts said. In the last five years, 8,100 people in Britain have died from malignant melanoma compared to 4,900 in Australia, according to the charity Cancer Research UK. Dermatologists blame the high number of deaths in Britain on a lack of public awareness about the disease and a failure of people to recognize early symptoms. "Malignant melanoma is a preventable cancer. We need the public to be aware of what they can do to help prevent the disease," Dr. Charlotte Proby, a dermatologist with Cancer Research UK, said in a statement.

Skin cancer is one of the most common cancers in Britain. Most cases can be treated and are unlikely to spread. But malignant melanoma, which accounts for less than one in 10 skin cancers, is the most deadly form. Each year about 6,000 people in Britain are diagnosed with malignant melanoma, which usually develops in cells in the outer layer of the skin but can spread to other parts of the body. Cancer Research UK has joined forces with the government to launch a campaign, similar to one in Australia, to inform people about skin cancer and how to spot the early signs.

According to the most recent figures, there were 7,850 cases of malignant melanoma diagnosed and 1,000 deaths in one year in Australia, compared to 5,990 in Britain and 1,600 deaths. "People there have been educated primarily to protect themselves in the sun. They are also taught to take notice of any unusual skin growths or changes in moles and to have them checked by a doctor," said Proby. "This means where there is disease it is diagnosed early and can be successfully treated," she added. Doctors advise people to wear sunscreen, wide-brimmed hats and sunglasses to protect themselves from the sun's harmful rays and to make sure they do not burn. Parents are also advised to take extra care to protect their children.

Health promotion strategies to prevent deaths from skin cancer, particularly melanoma, have two components: advice on early recognition and advice on prevention. The population is perhaps heeding advice on early recognition. Five year survival from melanoma in England and Wales is improving, particularly in female patients,1 probably because the cancer is diagnosed at an earlier stage owing to increased public awareness. But the incidence of melanoma is increasing in the United Kingdom and the United States; in the United Kingdom it has doubled over the past 20 years. This contrasts with a falling incidence in Australia, but it is not clear whether this difference is attributable to the Australian prevention campaign having been active for longer or whether prevention messages are less effective in the United Kingdom.

By 1996, attitudes among Australian students had already shifted positively towards avoiding exposure to the sun and away from the use of sunscreen and desire for a tan. In contrast, a study of 80 students in the United Kingdom published in 2000 found that most emphasised positive benefits of sun exposure, enjoyed sunbathing, protected themselves inadequately, and did not intend to change this behaviour. Experts believe that 90% of non-melanoma skin cancers and two thirds of melanomas may be attributed to excessive exposure to the sun. Although no direct evidence shows that sunbeds cause skin cancer, they are a source of intense exposure to ultraviolet radiation, and according to a recent report from the National Radiological Protection Board therefore represent a potential health risk.

Campaigns to prevent skin cancer have incorporated numerous messages including the need to avoid sunburn and generally reduce exposure to ultraviolet radiation by staying out of the midday sun, wearing protective clothing, seeking shade, and applying sunscreen. In recent years the advice on sunscreen has included recommendations for the use of broadband preparations with a higher sun protection factor. Early health promotional material did not give greater emphasis to any one means of protection over another. Little discussion has taken place of the fact that skin tanned by ultraviolet radiation is damaged skin or of the potential risks of using sunbeds. A tanned appearance remains fashionable, and, although there has been a marked increase in sales of self tanning lotions in western Europe and the United States (market data, Euromonitor 2002), no evidence has shown that this is replacing exposure to ultraviolet radiation. Despite having a good understanding of the relation between overexposure to the sun and skin cancer, 81% of Americans still think they look good after being in the sun.

Risk taking behaviour with respect to exposure to the sun continues. The availability of sunbeds on high streets in the United Kingdom seems to be increasing, but we could find no sources of data on trends in access to and use of commercial sunbeds to confirm this. The licensing by local authorities of commercial premises in the United Kingdom offering cosmetic sunbed tanning depends on the application of bylaws and is currently discretionary. Few local authorities choose to license and data currently collected cannot be used to monitor trends. The only data we could find to support the hypothesis that the use of sunbeds is increasing was from one American tanning firm, whose turnover rose from $2.8m (£1.8m; 2.8m) in 1990 to $15m in 2002. In the absence of any other data these figures could alternatively represent a changing market share. The equal emphasis placed on the use of sunscreen versus avoiding exposure to the sun or wearing protective clothing in early prevention campaigns in the United Kingdom may have led to confusion. Surveys carried out in the United Kingdom have found that sunscreen is regarded as the most important sun protection measure.

It is still unclear, however, whether sunscreens effectively protect against skin cancer, and concern has been raised that they may directly or indirectly increase the risk of disease, primarily because of poor application and increased exposure to the sun.6 Sunscreens with a high sun protection factor do not always prevent sunburn, although they should if applied according to the manufacturer's directions. The thickness of application has been shown to be less than half that officially tested and key exposed sites (neck, temples, and ears) are often missed completely. Although sunscreen should be used to reduce exposure to ultraviolet radiation, evidence shows that most people use it to facilitate a tan through longer duration of exposure.

For children too, despite the availability of new protective clothing and shades, sun protection consists primarily of applying sunscreen and may actually result in an increase in the time of exposure. So even if sunscreens are effective at preventing sunburn, the concern is that they may be less effective at reducing exposure to ultraviolet radiation and preventing skin cancer. Strategies to prevent skin cancer in the United Kingdom and United States have not resulted in a tanned appearance becoming less fashionable and, although evidence shows increased sales of self tanning products, recent studies still report high levels of risk taking behaviour with respect to exposure to the sun and seeking a tan.

Studies also show that in the United Kingdom sunscreen is being used as the main mode of protection and that, contrary to advice, many people use sunscreen to prolong exposure. The report from the National Radiological Protection Board concludes that protection by sunscreens is less reliable than that provided by reducing exposure through other means. It recommends that educational programmes should aim to reduce cumulative exposure to ultraviolet radiation and especially high levels resulting in acute damage. Information about the prevention of skin cancer on the website of the Department of Health (http://212.161.1.31/staysafe/suncreen-_dangers.html) already contains warnings about the risks associated with sunscreen when used to spend more time in the sun.

Messages about prevention in the United Kingdom may need to shift the emphasis still further towards covering up and staying out of the sun if the trend in incidence is to be reversed. Adopting the precautionary principle towards use of sunbeds would involve raising awareness of the potential risks, discouraging their use for cosmetic tanning, and monitoring their availability and use.

Harvard Researchers Discover Why Youthful Sun Damage Leads to Skin Cancer-(HealthScoutNews-04/02/03)

Doctors have long known that getting a severe sunburn when you're young increases your risk of skin cancer later in life. Now, researchers from Harvard's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute say they may finally know why. In a study that appears in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers used newborn mice to illustrate how the sun's rays damage something called the Rb pathway -- a chain of biochemical signals that regulate cell activity, including suppressing the growth of malignant tumor cells. "I think the key finding of our study is the observation of Rb pathway being hit specifically by UV [ultraviolet rays] and the potential implication of this," says study author Dr. Lynda Chin, an assistant professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School.

Essentially, a tumor develops when normal cells experience environmental or other types of damage, causing them to reproduce at an alarming rate. Under normal conditions, Chin says the Rb pathway will sense something is not right within the cell and turn off its ability to clone itself. This, in turn, stops tumor formation. However, if the Rb pathway becomes damaged by UV rays, particularly before the age of 17, researchers say the pathway's tumor-suppressing powers are compromised. With each new environmental assault, including sun exposure, the chances of malignant cells developing increases. What's more, Chin says, damage to the Rb pathway appears to be a direct link to melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. "Rb pathway is presumably constraining growth of to-be melanoma cells; the UV inactivates this [protection] to allow melanoma to develop," Chin explains.

If not treated early, melanoma is among the most aggressive cancers and rapidly spreads to cells throughout the body. According to the American Cancer Society, nearly 8,000 people are expected to die of melanoma in 2003 -- a 44 percent increase since 1973. However, if caught early, those damaged cells can be surgically removed, halting the spread of disease and dramatically decreasing the risk of death, experts say. For dermatologist Dr. Ted Daly, the new research represents a departure from the way in which doctors previously viewed the sun's role in skin cancer. "The accepted dogma was that the solar radiation hits a gene spot and causes kind of like a break in a zipper, so the cell no longer can divide correctly," says Daly, director of Pediatric Dermatology at Nassau University Medical Center.

The new theory points up an entirely different path of destruction that, while hopeful, remains to be proven in humans, he adds. "The negative is that mice are not men, so there's still a long way to go," Daly says. Researchers arrived at their conclusions studying newborns of two strains of genetically engineered mice -- both bred to be susceptible to cancer. The mice then experienced various stages of cell damage, including some who received UV damage to the Rb pathway. Ultimately, the incidence of tumor growth in all the mice was compared. What they found: The mice with the damaged Rb pathway were the ones most likely to develop melanoma. They also developed twice as many tumors, and their lesions appeared up to six weeks sooner than mice that experienced other types of cell damage. If Chin's theory proves true in humans, she says doctors can use the Rb pathway as a guide to help distinguish between cancerous and non-cancerous skin lesions -- without the need for surgery. That could be the most significant part of the new research, Daly says. "You could take a biopsy, look for the Rb pathway and if it was inactivated -- indicating early UV damage -- you would know it's a typical lesion that should be removed," he says. If it worked, Daly adds, it would be "more than wonderful; it would be miraculous."

People with melanomas on their face and neck might find out earlier whether the deadly cancer has spread, thanks to new research highlighting the safety and effectiveness of a special kind of skin mapping in this sensitive area. They may also receive treatment faster if the mapping shows the disease has spread to the lymph nodes, notes one of the authors of the largest such study to date. Once diagnosed by their doctor as having melanoma, "these people have no idea if it's reached beyond the initial site," says Dr. Carol Bradford, director of the University of Michigan's Head and Neck Oncology Program. "Early detection is crucial."

Bradford and her colleagues performed the delicate procedure on 80 patients diagnosed as having head and neck melanomas. While sentinel lymph node mapping (SLNM) is commonly used to detect the spread of melanoma in other places where this cancer is found, it's not routinely done on patients with head and neck melanomas because there are so many facial nerves, muscles and blood vessels in this area, Bradford says. "They're crucial to preserve," so the surgeon must be very familiar with face and neck surgery to perform SLNM, she explains. Once a person has been diagnosed with a mole that is a melanoma, he is then referred to a specialist to investigate whether the cancer is spreading. Aside from feeling a lump in the lymph nodes signaling that the cancer has spread, it's not possible to know if the cancer has spread without surgery, Bradford says.

To date, many patients with melanoma go on to have surgical removal of areas around the mole, which may not be necessary if the cancer has not spread. With SLNM, radioactive material is injected around the biopsy site. Using a probe that is "like a metal detector," doctors find areas that have trapped the radioactive material and mark them as places to make an incision. In the operating room, the patient is injected with blue dye. "Hot areas" -- those lymph nodes signaling as radioactive and blue -- are then removed and sent to pathology labs to determine if they are cancerous.

In this study, the researchers were able to identify a range of hot areas, from none to seven, in each patient. "Sentinel" in SLNM refers to draining lymph nodes, and they are usually the first areas where cancerous cells would go, Bradford explains. In the study, cancer was "found to be present in lymph nodes 18 percent of the time." However, four out of five patients did not have cancer that had spread, she says. Patients were followed for a minimum of a year, although median follow-up was 25 months. A false-negative rate (people who were determined to have no cancer in their lymph nodes but who later found the cancer had spread) was 4.5 percent. "We'd love it to be zero," Bradford acknowledges, but the procedure is "technically challenging" and makes errors more possible.

This study, which appears in the Archives of Otolaryngology, may prompt other surgeons to perform more SLNMs in the face and neck area, Bradford hopes. None of the patients suffered facial paralysis or any other devastating effect from the procedure. "It's safe to biopsy around this area where the facial nerve resides," Bradford says. The study suggests that SLNM "is pretty reliable," notes Dr. William Silver, vice president of the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. "The majority (of patients) were negative. The more of these we do and follow to develop more information, the more we avoid unnecessary surgery." Silver adds he would like to see longer follow-up on the patients, because the third or fourth year after the melanoma is first identified seems to be key in determining whether the cancer has been eradicated.

Dr. James Hartman, an assistant professor of otolaryngology at the Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, performs SLNM and considers it "a valid tool." The researchers looked at using a "pretty well-established technique for other parts of the body in our region, the head and neck," he says. Because 75 percent of all melanomas are in the head and neck area, many patients stand to benefit from the use of SLNM in this region, Silver says.

Researchers have found that a tiny snippet of DNA may be the link between the way cells fight cancer and their normal response to aging, a new study shows. What's more, the finding may have at least one unusual application--it seems applying the DNA fragments to the skin may trigger a tan, even in the absence of sunlight. Overall, the study suggests that the process by which cells age--and eventually commit suicide--is actually a cancer prevention strategy, according to a report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences early online edition. Understanding the process may eventually lead to treatments to protect the body against carcinogens like ultraviolet (UV) radiation, Dr. Barbara Gilchrest, chairman of dermatology at the Boston University School of Medicine in Boston, told Reuters Health.

The longer a cell lives and divides, the more likely it is that the cell will sustain DNA damage, so cells have a built-in mechanism to destroy themselves once they have reached old age, Gilchrest said. The new study shows that the same mechanism is used to detect and destroy cells that have sustained DNA damage due to ultraviolet radiation or carcinogenic chemicals, Gilchrest adds. Scientists have known for years that cells keep track of their age through a strand of DNA called a telomere, which is found on the tips of chromosomes, the long strings of coiled DNA found in cells. Each time the cell divides, the telomere becomes shorter. When it gets to a certain length, the cell stops dividing and essentially commits suicide. What scientists didn't know, Gilchrest says, is the details of how the process worked and whether it was linked to the way cells react to DNA damage.

"To picture the telomere, think of the chromosome as a shoestring," Gilchrest said. "The telomere would be the coated part at the end. But in the case of the telomere, that end is in the shape of a flattened loop." The loop is held in place--and apart from the rest of the chromosome--by a short string of DNA called an overhang. When the telomere shortens or is damaged by some kind of carcinogen, the overhang lets go and the loop bursts open, according to Gilchrest. At that point, the cell can "see" the contents of the telomere. "When you expose it, that is the signal for DNA damage," Gilchrest said. "And the response of the cell will depend on how strong and persistent that signal is." If the signal is strong and goes on for a long time, the cell will commit suicide, Gilchrest said. But if it's a short, or weak, signal, the cell will turn on mechanisms to repair damage to its DNA.

Ultimately, the new research may lead to medications to help prevent some kinds of cancer, Gilchrest said. If cells are put on alert, but not high alert, they will fortify the body against DNA damage rather than committing suicide. For example, Gilchrest said, the cells in the skin can be coaxed to tan even without exposure to UV rays. "You get a lovely tan and the skin looks otherwise perfectly normal," she added. So its possible that the skin can be made to turn on its best defense against UV damage-- a tan--before a person even goes out in the sun, Gilchrest said.

Women with melanoma that has metastasized, or spread, respond more readily to chemotherapy than men, and the effect is particularly strong for older women, according to research presented here at the European Society for Medical Oncology congress. Some studies have suggested that women with the disease have improved survival compared to men, noted Dr. Juri Bulat from the Cancer Research Center in Moscow.

Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer. To determine the effect of age and gender on chemotherapy's efficacy in this condition, Bulat and colleagues analyzed medical records for 176 men and 147 women treated between 1982 and 1988. The patients had been given a number of different chemotherapy regimens. The response rate was 17.9% for men and 34.7% for women, he said. Further analysis found response rates for men and women under 40 were similar, but were 14.1% and 32.3%, respectively, for patients between 40 and 60 years old, and 13% and 35.7% for those over 60. "Our data confirms the supposition that disseminated malignant melanoma in women (especially the elderly) may be more sensitive to the conventional treatment than in men, and should be used to stratify patients in future trials," Bulat concluded.

Rubbing a cream that contains a derivative of vitamin A on the skin may stave off the most common type of skin cancer, researchers report. Dr. Ervin Epstein, Jr. of the University of California, San Francisco and his colleagues discovered that mice who were predisposed to skin cancer developed fewer and smaller tumors after ultraviolet radiation exposure when they had received the vitamin cream, compared to mice given an inactive cream. The most common type of skin cancer is basal cell carcinoma, a highly curable type of cancer that arises from the base of the epidermis, or the outermost layer of the skin. The mice in the study were engineered to develop a condition similar to an inherited disease in humans called basal cell nevus syndrome (BCNS), in which people become abnormally susceptible to basal cell carcinomas.

Epstein said that this type of vitamin A cream may one day help people with BCNS prevent the cancers they are prone to, and may also benefit those without the disorder who also develop skin cancers. However, he cautioned that further investigation of the cream is needed before it can be used in humans. Previous research has suggested that derivatives of vitamin A may help with cancers such as breast cancer. Investigators have also shown that pills containing derivatives of vitamin A help shrink skin cancer tumors in patients, but when ingested, the treatment can cause serious side effects.

Vitamin A derivatives come in a few forms, Epstein explained. The treatment tested in the current study is known as tazarotene, and it is now used to treat acne and psoriasis. Other vitamin A derivatives include the acne drugs Accutane and Retin A. In the current study, which Epstein and his colleagues presented at the Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Meeting by the American Association for Cancer Research in Boston, the researchers rubbed tazarotene on the skin of cancer-prone mice five times a week for a 330-day period. The mice were also exposed to UV radiation three times a week starting 2 months into the study.

The investigators found that mice who received the vitamin A cream developed 85% less and smaller tumors than those who weren't given the cream. In an interview with Reuters Health, Epstein said that no one is exactly sure why vitamin A might help prevent cancer, but he said he suspects that, in this case, the treatment keeps cells from continuing to proliferate. In basal cell carcinoma, the researcher explained, cells can get "stuck" in a phase where they multiply, and can't stop. Vitamin A may help those cells by forcing them to switch from proliferation to differentiation, the stage in which cells take on their destined functions, Epstein noted.

While the most deadly form of skin cancer, melanoma, became more common overall from 1969 to 1999, fewer people under 45 are dying from the disease, probably due to increased sunscreen use, Boston researchers say. "I was incredibly surprised when we found this because I've been doing melanoma research for 20 years and I've always thought that the increase in incidence and mortality cut across all age groups," said lead author Alan Geller, an associate professor in dermatology at Boston University School of Medicine. Mortality rates in older people, on the other hand, are rising, according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the US. Of the 2.5 million new cases of cancer diagnosed in the US in 2002, over half, or 1.3 million, will be skin cancer. Melanoma is the least common form of skin cancer, but also the most dangerous. To investigate trends in melanoma incidence and mortality, Geller and his colleagues analyzed national mortality data for 1969 to 1999, as well as information on new cases of melanoma from 1973 through 1999. Melanoma deaths among people aged 20 to 45 decreased 30% to 40%, although new cases of the disease increased. Geller told Reuters Health that the increased use of sunscreen beginning in the 1960s helps explain the lower mortality rates in that age group, who grew up hearing public health messages to wear sunscreen.

Mortality rates increased more than 60% among middle-aged men, a rise three-fold greater than that seen among their female contemporaries. Among men older than 65, deaths from melanoma increased 57%, a rate also triple that for women older than 65. Women's mortality rate is lower, Geller said, because they are more attentive to changes in their skin and are better than men at bringing the lesions to the attention of their doctors. Geller said that a public health campaign directed toward middle-aged people should emphasize detection of warning signs of skin cancer, like irregular moles, rather than focusing on protection. He said primary care physicians should check for moles and encourage their middle-aged and older patients to know their skin and be aware of any changes it undergoes.

"We've really been trying to push this as a family affair," said Geller. "What happens often is that men don't look at their own skin. About one third of all melanomas in men are on their backs, and if they don't look at their skin, they surely aren't going to look at their backs." He said patients' partners and physicians should "start looking" for signs of melanoma. The researchers analyzed the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER), released this year by the National Center for Health Statistics. The study focuses on melanoma among whites, who have a 10 to 15 times greater likelihood of developing skin cancer than Hispanics or African Americans.

Immune Therapy Found to Fight Advanced Skin Cancer-(Reuters Health-19/09/2002)

An immune-system therapy that boosts critical cancer-fighting T cells has been found to shrink tumors in some patients with advanced malignant melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. The small study by researchers at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) showed that extracting patients' own T cells, then multiplying the cells in the lab and re-infusing them, allowed patients' immune systems to launch a more aggressive attack on their tumors. This general tactic has been tried before against melanoma, without success. But this time, the researchers used chemotherapy to suppress patients' immune systems before transferring the T cells back. This essentially "made room" for the bulked-up supply of T cells, according to Dr. Steven A. Rosenberg of the NIH's National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.

His team found that of the 13 treated patients, whose melanoma had spread to distant sites such as the lungs and liver, six saw their tumors shrink by at least half. In another four, some tumors regressed while others did not. The findings were published in Sciencexpress, the online edition of the journal Science. In an interview with Reuters Health, Rosenberg stressed that this T cell-based therapy is still "highly experimental" and, for now, only applicable to malignant melanoma. "But we hope to extend it to others cancers," he said.

Malignant melanoma, although curable when caught early, is responsible for the majority of skin cancer deaths. The patients in the current study all had advanced melanoma that had failed to respond to standard therapy. The experimental therapy Rosenberg's team used takes advantage of the natural cancer-fighting work of "killer" T cells, which are able to knock off cancerous, infected or foreign cells. Many scientists have been studying ways to enhance this natural defense in cancer treatment. But in melanoma research, vaccines designed to boost patients' T cells have so far failed to shrink tumors. And in past attempts at multiplying patients' T cells then transferring them back, the transferred cells have failed to take hold in the body. To try to get past this problem, Rosenberg's team gave patients chemotherapy to deplete their immune systems before transferring their T cells back. From each patient, the researchers had removed and multiplied only some select T cells known to be active against their melanoma. After treatment, six patients showed a clear response, two of whom had a regression of more than 95% of their disease. Blood samples from these two patients also showed that the transferred melanoma-fighting T cells had "repopulated" their immune systems, according to the researchers. Rosenberg said his team plans to study the therapy in other types of cancer. In theory, he noted, the tactic could also be used in treating HIV or other infectious diseases.

A gene associated with development of melanoma and colon cancer has been identified by scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. The gene is called Nr-CAM and it normally encodes a Cell Adhesion Molecule (CAM) in neuronal, or nerve cells. However, Dr. Avri Ben-Ze'ev and his colleagues found that when Nr-CAM is expressed at high levels in other types of cells, it can help drive the progression of cancer. The study appears in Genes and Development.

The researchers found Nr-CAM expression in mouse fibroblast cells causes rapid proliferation in cell culture. Those cells can form tumors when they're injected into mice with compromised immune systems, the study says. Also, Nr-CAM is highly expressed in human melanoma cells and colon cancer tissue, the study found. Future research will focus on how Nr-CAM contributes to the development of such cancers

The more sun you get, the higher your risk of skin cancer, U.S. researchers said in a report they claim is the first to show an individual's cumulative risk of melanoma. Many studies have linked sun exposure with skin cancer, but the team at the National Cancer Institute said their research was the first to show the intensity of sunlight a person receives over a lifetime is directly related to melanoma risk. An ability to tan does not especially protect a person, according to a statement released by the institute's Thomas Fears, who led the study.

"The risk of melanoma is greatest for people who develop little or no tan," Fears said. "However, we've learned that where people live as both kids and adults, and how much UVB shines in those places are important factors -- regardless of tanning ability." UVB rays are the sun's ultraviolet rays linked with tanning and burning. The sun's UVA rays are also linked with skin cancer and with the wrinkling that comes from sun exposure.

For their study, Fears' team questioned 718 melanoma patients in Philadelphia and San Francisco, and compared their answers to 945 people who did not have skin cancer. The study was restricted to non-Hispanic whites, Fears noted. Each was questioned about his or her ability to tan and tendency to burn, along with a careful history of their exposure to the sun where they lived, worked and vacationed. Robertson-Berger meters, which measure the amount of solar radiation received in a particular location, were used to estimate how much UVB a person received. New Orleans, for example, receives 20 percent more UVB rays each year than Atlanta does, Fears said. Researchers used the UVB exposure readings and the patients' ages to determine an average annual intensity of sun exposure for participants in the study.

Writing in the journal Cancer Research, Fears and his colleagues concluded a 10 percent increase in the average annual intensity of sun exposure led to a 19 percent increase in a man's risk for melanoma and a 16 percent increase for women. The researchers also found that people spent more time outside in the summer before the age of 20 than after. This may account for the generally accepted idea that childhood exposure to sun is the most important factor in developing skin cancer.Doctors now say there is no such thing as a safe tan and warn everyone to reduce exposure to the sun's rays. Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer, but is easily treated if caught early. A typical sign is a black, irregularly shaped or bleeding mole. The American Cancer Society estimates that 53,600 people will be diagnosed with melanoma in the United States in 2002, and 7,400 will die of it.

Patients who can identify changes in the size and shape of their moles can help their doctors to spot melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, at an early and more treatable stage. But study findings show that many people seem to be unable to determine whether or not their moles are enlarging. "In this study, the patients identified only a small proportion of enlarging melanocytic nevi (moles)," write study author Dr. Harald Kittler of the University of Vienna Medical School in Austria and colleagues.

The researchers investigated patients' ability to identify enlarging moles in a study of 251 people with a total of 1,431 moles. Although the patients were not told to examine their skin, they were evaluated on their ability to notice changes during an examination that took place 6 to 12 months after an initial doctor visit. Altogether, 46 (3%) of the patients' moles had enlarged during the follow-up period, but patients only identified 17 moles has having enlarged, the authors report in Archives of Dermatology. What's more, only 5 of the 17 moles identified by patients had actually grown larger, study findings indicate.

"The ability of patients to identify enlarging nevi (moles) depended on the relative area expansion of the lesions," the researchers write. "This means that, if the patient reported enlargement of a lesion, it was likely that the lesion had enlarged substantially."

Commenting on the findings, Dr. John A. Carucci of Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City told Reuters Health the study "reaffirms the need for periodic evaluation of patients with nevi by dermatologists in order to detect changes in moles that may facilitate early detection of melanoma." He added, "The study also supports the need for immediate evaluation by a dermatologist any time a patient perceives a change in a pre-existing mole, since that change may be more significant than anticipated by the patient." Carucci, who is also affiliated with the New York Presbyterian Hospital, is not associated with Kittler's research.

Skin Cancer Gene Effect Stronger in Certain Regions-(Reuters Health-19/06/2002)

Researchers have long known of a gene that predisposes people to develop melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. However, not all carriers of the mutated gene develop melanoma, and new research suggests that a carrier's chances of having melanoma vary according to where he or she lives. An international group of researchers investigated how often carriers of the mutated form of the CDKN2A gene--who have an increased risk of melanoma--actually developed the disease. Led by Dr. D. Timothy Bishop of St. James's University Hospital in Leeds, UK, the investigators found that mutation carriers who were from Australia were most likely to develop melanoma by the age of 80, and those who grew up and lived in the US were more likely to eventually show signs of melanoma than carriers from Europe.

These trends correspond to the rates of melanoma in different countries, for carriers hailing from countries with lower levels of the disease had lower chances of developing melanoma than carriers born and raised in countries with higher rates of the cancer. This finding suggests that the factors that influence population-wide rates of melanoma may also influence how likely a carrier is to acquire disease, a quality known as penetrance. "This study, which gives the most informed estimates of CDKN2A mutation penetrance available, indicates that the penetrance varies with melanoma population incidence rates," Bishop and his team write. "Thus, the same factors that affect population incidence of melanoma may also mediate CDKN2A penetrance," they add. Bishop and his colleagues report their findings in the June 19th issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

CDKN2A denotes a region on a chromosome that encodes for two proteins that help regulate cell division. Mutations in this region of the genome have been found in around 20% of families with a higher than average rate of melanoma. The investigators base their findings on analyses of 80 families with members who carried the mutated CDKN2A gene and were based in Europe, Australia and the US. The families included 291 people who were carriers and developed melanoma, as well as 194 carriers who were never diagnosed with skin cancer. Bishop and his team found that 13% of European carriers studied developed melanoma at or before the age of 50, compared with 50% and 32% of carriers in the US and Australia, respectively.

By the time people turned 80, Australian carriers reported a 91% chance of having melanoma, relative to a 76% chance in US carriers and a 58% chance in European carriers. In an accompanying editorial, Drs. Gloria M. Petersen and Celine M. Vachon of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota write that further studies are needed to determine what factors can explain the differences in risk between families hailing from different corners of the globe. For instance, the chance of a mutation leading to cancer could depend on geographic variations in ultraviolet rays, or other genes in melanoma patients, they note. "Future investigations will have to examine whether environment (such as differing UV radiation levels between countries), genetic predisposition--such as presence of (moles) or modifier genes--or both underlie the variation seen in penetrance estimates," the editorialists conclude.

Laser Treatment May Not Prevent Skin Cancer: Study (Reuters Health-21/05/2002)

Laser resurfacing of sun-damaged skin may be less effective than previously believed at preventing cancerous skin lesions, according to researchers. Their letter in the Archives of Dermatology describes two individuals who underwent laser resurfacing to treat severe sun damage on the face but developed non-melanoma skin cancer within 2 years. Laser resurfacing uses short pulses of energy to remove the outer layer and a portion of the deeper layer of skin and stimulate the production of new skin. The procedure has proven successful at treating photoaging--wrinkles and other cosmetic damage caused by sun exposure--but may not be as effective at reversing more severe damage, the investigators found. "There is a risk of skin cancer development after the procedure," Dr. Jeffrey S. Dover from SkinCare Physicians of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, told Reuters Health.

Dover and his colleagues describe the case of a 63-year-old woman with no history of skin cancer treated with laser resurfacing for moderate-to-severe sun damage. Six months later the woman had developed lesions on her face, and a biopsy revealed she had basal cell carcinoma, a highly curable type of cancer that arises from the base of the epidermis, or the outer most layer of the skin. The lesions were removed. While remaining free of skin cancer, the woman occasionally developed actinic keratosis, a severe type of sun damage marked by red or brown scaly patches on her skin, over the next 2 years. Similarly, a 48-year-old woman with a history of actinic keratosis and basal cell carcinoma underwent laser resurfacing. Six months later the woman developed a squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), a type of cancer that arises from the squamous cells in the lining of tissue, on her jawline. The cancer was surgically removed and had not recurred 1 year later. Dover and colleagues suggest that the tumors were located deep in the skin and remained unaffected by resurfacing but note that more research is needed to investigate whether laser resurfacing is an effective preventive procedure for malignant skin tumors. "(The findings) may indicate that skin cancers can originate from follicular cells which, because of their location, remain undamaged during resurfacing," they write. In the meantime, individuals who have had the procedure should continue to use sunscreens and protective clothing, according to the authors.

With the largest vaccine study almost halfway done, hope for better treatment for melanoma may be on the horizon. NewsCenter 5's Liz Brunner said that melanoma accounts for only 4 percent of skin cancers, but causes 80 percent of skin cancer deaths.

"I remember one time I got burned so bad they had to take me to the hospital," melanoma patient Jim Smith said. Still, Smith loved the sun. But one day in 1999, it cast a permanent shadow over his life. That was the day the results came back about a growth he had removed from his face. The call came at the post office. "I was just devastated because I had heard melanoma can kill you within a certain amount of time," Smith said.

"He had a melanoma that was fairly thick, and he was found to have a tumor in his lung," Boston Medical Center Dr. Marie-France Demierre said. "His survival, if one, did not do anything. We were talking about months." With surgery for the tumor, his prospects were a little better. After that, the usual treatment is high dose interferon -- a very aggressive chemotherapy.

"They were saying there were times I just wouldn't be able to go to work, and I always want to go to work, but they said, 'Your strength wouldn't be there,'" Smith said.

Smith enrolled in a study at Boston Medical Center. It's one of 50 sites around the world testing a promising new vaccine for advanced melanoma. "Earlier studies have shown quite a significant increase in survival, almost a doubling of survival in patients who receive the vaccine," Demierre said. It's a double-blind study, which means nobody knows if Smith's actually getting the vaccine or a placebo. But Smith felt that he had no choice.

"You think of so many things that you don't think of before, your family and that you want to be with them as long as possible. That's why you take anything, like this treatment, to make sure you're alright," Smith said. The results of the study will not be in for another two to three years. Boston Medical Center is still enrolling patients in their study. If you have Stage 3 or Stage 4 melanoma call Becky Brown, Boston Medical Center Clinical Research Manager, at (617) 414-1828.

Sun-starved British men were warned that their rates of a deadly form of skin cancer are increasing dramatically, suggesting they should take better care to protect themselves from the sun during their upcoming summer holidays. Women have traditionally been more likely to develop melanoma, the least common but most deadly form of skin cancer. But over the 6 years to 1998, the incidence of the rapidly spreading malignancy increased 12% in men but just 2% in women.

For the first time in at least 20 years, more British men than women are dying from the cancer, which claims over 1,600 lives each year in the rainy island nation, according to researchers from the charity Cancer Research UK. "This may be the beginning of a worrying trend," the group's Dr. Lesley Walker told Reuters Health. "It seems that the gap between men and women is narrowing. It's disappointing to find that trends for men are following the same worrying pattern we were recording in women a decade ago."

Exactly why men's rates are increasing is hard to determine, the Cancer Research experts said. It could have something to do with the fact that Britons are more likely now than ever before to take their holidays in sunny countries. And while women are starting to heed sun warnings, men are not doing enough to protect themselves, they suggested.

Men who develop the disease are also more likely to die within 5 years than women. This is probably because men are more likely to get melanomas on their back, whereas women tend to get them on more easily spotted positions such as their legs. Men are also less likely to examine their skin and are less willing to see a doctor.

The latest figures were announced at the launch of the charity's SunSmart 2002 campaign to increase awareness of the dangers of excess sun exposure.

To reduce risk, Cancer Research UK advises people to avoid the sun between 11 AM and 3 PM, wear a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses, always use a broad spectrum sunscreen with a protection factor of SPF 15 or above, and avoid using sun beds or tanning lamps. Any unusual changes in skin or moles should be reported to a doctor without delay. Warning signs for moles include an irregular outline, an asymmetrical shape, uneven colour and a diameter greater than 6 mm, roughly the size of the blunt end of a pencil.

Early treatment is crucial for surviving melanoma, the researchers said. Five-year survival for patients with melanoma thinner than 1.5 mm is over 90%, but once it has grown to just 3.5 mm deep into the skin, survival rates drop to 42% in men and 54% in women.

People who seek a glamorous tan using sun lamps may double their risk of developing some common types of skin cancer, according to a new study that found the risk was highest for those who start at a young age. The study, appearing in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, concluded that people who use tanning devices were 1.5 to 2.5 times more likely to have common kinds of skin cancer than were people who did not use the devices.

The study confirmed what doctors and other health care workers have long suspected - that sun lamp use increases the risk of basal cell and squamous cell skin cancers, said Margaret R Karagas, first author of the study. "Even though we suspected tanning lamps might cause these types of skin cancers, there really hadn't before been epidemiological studies that addressed that issue," she said.

Dr. James Spencer, vice chairman of the department of dermatology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and an expert spokesman for the American Academy of Dermatology, praised the study as confirming in humans what has already been shown in animal studies - "it is actually worse to go to the tanning parlor and get a little bit each day" than it is to get an infrequent sunburn. Both can seriously damage the skin, but the small, day-to-day exposure is worse for the skin in the long run. "The tanning industry has said ... as long as you don't burn you'll be okay," said Spencer. "This study shows that this is not true."

Joseph A Levy, vice president of the International Smart Tan Network and a spokesman for the Indoor Tanning Association, however, said the study "is not an indictment of commercial tanning facilities in any way." He said that occasional sunburn "is a risk factor in all forms of skin cancer and intermittent sunburn is what the tanning industry is trying to stop." Levy said there are about 25,000 tanning salons in the US. He said it is a $5 billion industry patronized annually by about 28 million Americans.

In the study, Karagas and her colleagues interviewed 603 basal cell skin cancer patients and 293 with squamous cell skin cancer. They also talked to 540 control subjects, people who did not have either type of skin cancer. About 1 million Americans are diagnosed annually with skin cancer. About 80 per cent are basal cell; 16 per cent squamous cell, and 4 per cent are melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer. Melanoma patients were not included in the study. The study interviews included questions about tanning device use at any point in the patients' lives and about other sun exposures. Among the skin cancer patients, 190 reported that they had used tanning devices at some time. In the control group, only 75 had used tanning devices.

Karagas said a statistical analysis shows that those who used tanning equipment were 2.5 times more likely to get squamous cell skin cancer than were people, who had not used the devices. For basal cell cancer, the risk was 1.5 times greater. The risk was highest for those who first used the tanning devices before the age of 20, said Karagas. For this group, the squamous cell cancer risk was 3.6 times greater than the controls. The basal cell cancer risk was 1.8 times greater. The researcher said the statistics were adjusted for the effects of routine normal sun exposure and other factors that might contribute to skin cancer.

Levy said the study is not relevant to the modern tanning industry because most of the patients interviewed were exposed to tanning equipment before 1975. "Indoor tanning facilities did not come into play (in the US) until 1979," said Levy. Thus, he said, many of the people interviewed for the study must have improperly used home sun lamps. Commercial tanning parlors, said Levy, use calibrated equipment that carefully regulates and controls exposure. .

Tests to identify people at risk from skin cancer could one day be on sale alongside bottles of sunblock after scientists identified a genetic variation responsible for melanoma. The disease is Britain’s fastest growing form of cancer. Malignant melanomas kill more than 1000 people each year. However, skin cancer is also the easiest type of cancer to avoid: for most people the answer is to stay out of the sun.

Skin cancer has traditionally been more prevalent among fair people with moles. Actors Roger Moore, Elizabeth Taylor and Clint Eastwood and culture secretary Tessa Jowell have all had skin cancer scares. Despite campaigns from the government, charities and even fashion magazines, surveys show that one in five people "yearn" for an all round tan. The effects of the sun had deactivated almost half of the commercial sunscreens tested.

Aggressive tumour cells leave a trail in their environment that affects the spread of cancer, researchers have found. The trail persists even after the cells have been removed. And when less aggressive cancers come across it, they too can become much more threatening. The environment around and between cells is known as the extracellular matrix and is full of molecules that play important roles in how tissues look and behave.

Researchers from the University of Iowa examined the impact of melanoma (skin cancer) cells on this environment. They found that highly aggressive melanoma cells interact with this matrix differently than less aggressive melanoma cells. These differences may have important implications for the diagnosis and treatment of melanoma, as well as other types of aggressive cancers. The researchers found that aggressive melanoma cells lay down a molecular track as they interact with their extracellular matrix. These tracks appear to contain information and cues which, like bread crumbs on a path, contain information and directions that can be interpreted by less aggressive tumour cells. These cues may persist in the matrix long after the aggressive tumour cells have moved on and then cause less aggressive cells, which move into this area, to become more aggressive.

Researcher Dr Richard Seftor said: "We found that aggressive melanoma cells could alter their environment and cause other less aggressive melanoma cells to act more aggressively."

Cells remodel their extracellular environment by both knocking down and building up the physical structure they live in. The interplay of building up and breaking down the extracellular matrix by cells plays a major role in how wounds heal, how cancer spreads through the body (metastasis) and how the body deals with inflammation. Two types of protein play a particularly important role in this process. They are laminins and matrix metalloproteinaes (MMPs).

The researchers found that aggressive tumours cells were much more likely to produce particular types of these two proteins that react together to produce a trail of laminin fragments through the extracellular matrix. It seems that these fragments enable the aggressive cells to spread themselves around the body more easily by mimicking cells found in the blood vessels. When this chemical cocktail was blocked the tumour cells were unable to engage in this form of mimicry. However, it was seen among less aggressive melanoma cells put onto the matrix for only a short period. Lead researcher Dr Mary Hendrix said it might be possible to modify the extracellular matrix to stop tumour cells from proliferating.

Tests to identify people at risk from skin cancer could one day be on sale alongside bottles of sunblock after Oxford University scientists identified a genetic variation responsible for melanoma. The disease is Britain's fastest-growing form of cancer, and malignant melanomas kill more than 1,000 people each year. However, skin cancer is also the easiest type of cancer to avoid: for most people the answer is to stay out of the sun.

The Oxford team found that patients with melanomas tend to have a particular variation in a single gene. The scientists have been able to show a link between some single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) - small genetic variations that are the bedrock of humans - and the likelihood of an individual developing skin cancer. These variations can be used to track the inheritance of any gene, and they are also believed to underlie susceptibilities to many common diseases, including cancer. The scientists looked at 125 patients and found they had either a T or C-type of SNP. People with melanomas were far more likely to carry the T-type variation. Those with the C-type are thought to have a more effective repair mechanism for dealing with cancer. This makes it relatively easy to develop a test that would tell people if they carried the T-type gene variation.

Professor Adrian Harris, the Imperial Cancer Research Fund professor of oncology at Oxford, described the finding as "important", but said that further work needed to be done. It might one day be possible to treat people with this type of technology, he said. "Prevention might be possible with agents that mop up that type of DNA damage."

Scientists hope that the development of a test will help to cut skin cancer rates, which have quadrupled since the 1970s when package holidays became popular. Exposing skin to two weeks of Mediterranean sun is the equivalent to a year's sun in Britain.

About 6,000 new patients are now diagnosed each year, and skin cancer is also one of the few that affects younger people. Among those aged 20 to 34, it is the third most common cancer in women, and the fourth in men. Skin cancer has traditionally been most prevalent among fair people with moles. The actors Roger Moore, Elizabeth Taylor and Clint Eastwood, and the culture secretary Tessa Jowell, have all had skin cancer scares.

Despite campaigns from the government, charities and even fashion magazines, surveys show that one in five people "yearns" for an all-round tan, and a recent Mori poll even showed that six-year-old children thought they looked better with a tan. However, a study by Vienna University's medical school has discovered that almost half of the commercial sunscreens tested had been deactivated by the effects of the sun.

Good news for tea drinkers, drinking hot tea may protect against skin cancer concludes a new US study. Tea has long been known to have anti-carcinegenic properties but a large population-based study had never been attempted before to find a definitive answer. Researchers in the US have now concluded that ‘‘consumption of tea had a significant marked decrease in the risk of skin cancer’’.

Tea is known to be a rich source of anti-oxidants a group of natural compounds that help protect human cells. Billed as the first large-scale clinical study to investigate the potential of tea and citrus peel to prevent skin cancer in humans, the study was done in Arizona that has some of the highest levels of skin cancer.

Four hundred and fifty people, half of whom had a particular kind of skin cancer (squamous cell skin cancer), were interviewed about their consumption of tea and citrus peel — commonly added to tea in America. The survey showed that people who developed skin cancer drank significantly less hot tea than those healthy individuals. Furthermore, the consumption of tea with citrus peel seemed to offer more protection against skin cancer.

Principal researcher, Iman Hakim of the Arizona Cancer Center, Tucson, US says ‘‘among the study subjects, citrus peel use was associated with more than 70 per cent reduced risk for skin cancer, where as hot black tea consumption alone conferred 40 per cent reduced risk for skin cancer’’.

Though it may seem like great news for all those habitual chai consumers of India, the study has to be taken with a caveat since it looked at consumption of black tea as against the milk tea we consume in India. The populace investigated habitually added lemon peel into their hot cups. This addition of a slice of lemon peel seemed to make tea even more potent against certain forms of skin cancer. It is widely known that addition of milk reduces the therapeutic value of tea.

The researchers whose work has been published in the American journal Dermatology hope that this study may help develop food supplements that will complement skin cancer prevention strategies helping to save lives.

Here's a new wrinkle in cancer research: people with smooth faces run a higher risk than those with wrinkles of developing the most common form of skin cancer. A study found that people with relatively heavy wrinkling were 90 per cent less likely to develop basal cell carcinoma - a slow-growing, easily treatable cancer that often appears on the face.

That confirms what many dermatologists have observed, but it might surprise many non-experts: wrinkles are often associated with sun exposure, and sun exposure raises the risk of skin cancer. The findings do not mean people should feel free to become sun-worshippers as sun exposure is strongly linked to other forms of skin cancer, including the deadliest: melanoma. The study tells us that you can get lots of sun exposure and no wrinkles and still get cancer.

The study involved 118 white people over age 50 who visited a dermatology centre at a Manchester hospital. It is not clear why those with more wrinkles are less likely to get basal cell cancer, but the explanation may lie in how the skin repairs itself.

People with severe psoriasis may have a higher risk of developing lymphoma and skin cancer. But researchers are unsure if the risk comes from the psoriasis itself or from the drugs often used to treat the most severe cases.

Psoriasis is a lifelong disease in which the skin turns scaly, with sensitive red patches. It can be disfiguring and even disabling. Researchers found that patients with severe psoriasis who were treated with internally taken drugs were twice as likely as a control group people with high blood pressure to develop lymphomas and non-melanoma skin cancer. There also was a slightly higher cancer risk among people with less severe psoriasis, which often is treated with lotions.

The cancer risk for those with severe psoriasis is slightly less than that of organ-transplant patients, who often receive similar immune-system suppressing drugs. More research is necessary to determine if cancer was caused by psoriasis or the medication, or how long a person would have to be exposed to a drug before the risk increased. A previous study found that a widely used ultraviolet-light treatment for severe psoriasis can raise the risk of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, in people who undergo years of such therapy.

The study involved 1,101 Medicaid patients who had severe psoriasis and 16,519 who had less severe cases of the disease from 1992 to 1996.

Despite repeated warnings over the years, deaths and disfigurements from the most preventable cancer type -- skin cancer -- continue to rise, worrying doctors and triggering new approaches to public education. With more than 1.3 million new cases and nearly 10,000 deaths expected this year in the United States, skin cancer affects about as many patients as all other cancers combined, according to the American Cancer Society.

The most common types of skin cancer, squamous cell and basal cell carcinoma, are curable in more than 98 percent of patients, but early detection and treatment are crucial. The situation is bleaker for melanoma patients. About 7,800 Americans are projected to die this year from melanoma, due to the spread of the melanoma tumor to other parts of the body, invading key organs.

In New Jersey, skin cancer incidence is about 18 cases for every 100,000 men and about 11 cases for every 100,000 women. Both figures have risen steadily over the last two decades. Dermatologists say many Baby Boomers who endured severe sunburns years ago as children now are at risk of developing skin cancer, especially deadly melanoma, and should seek treatment quickly if they notice any changes in moles or their skin.

Along with using beach umbrellas, hats and shirts with sleeves, people should apply sunscreen liberally, even to children who are swimming, and should reapply it because it comes off in the water. The cancer society this spring began a new campaign: "Slip. Slop. Slap." "Slip on a shirt. Slop on the sunscreen. Slap on a hat."

Antidepressants Counteract Side Effects of Cancer Drug-(Cancer info-02/04/2001)

Cancer patients and others who would benefit from treatment with the drug interferon often stop taking the medication because of side effects that mimic symptoms of major depression. These central nervous system symptoms include fatigue, anorexia, impaired concentration, sleep disturbance, and even suicidal thoughts, which have, in several cases, led to suicides. Animal studies have suggested that pretreating patients with antidepressants may alleviate some of these side effects, and now, researchers confirm those findings.

The study involved 40 patients with malignant melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer. Twenty of the patients were pretreated with an antidepressant for two weeks before starting a 12-week course of the interferon therapy. The antidepressant was continued for this group throughout the 12-week treatment period. Twenty other patients were given a placebo, or sugar pill, for two weeks prior to starting the 12-week course of interferon and remained on placebo throughout the period. At the end of the 12-week period, results showed that symptoms of major depression had occurred in two of the patients in the antidepressant group (11 percent), compared with nine of the patients in the control group (45 percent). One patient in the antidepressant group suffered from severe depressive symptoms and had to withdraw from the interferon therapy before the end of the study period, compared with seven in the control group.

Scientists have found a way of using the herpes virus to kill off skin cancer cells. Researchers have used a genetically-modified herpes simplex virus, which causes cold sores, to kill malignant and spreading tumour cells.

In a trial on five patients, they have discovered that the treatment targets skin tumours selectively and appears non-toxic to other cells, suggesting it could be a safe way of dealing with the diseases. However, it could be ten years before such a treatment is fully developed. At present, other than surgery, nothing works against late-stage melanoma [skin cancer]. The herpes simplex treatment might be included in non-surgical therapy for this disease in the future.

The research shows that the herpes simplex virus replicates selectively in melanoma cell tissue and destroys tumours. It is a virus that is naturally attracted to nerve tissue. The cells that give rise to melanoma are derived from the developing nervous system in the foetus, which is thought to be why HSV targets skin tumours. It also likes to attack actively dividing cells, which is another reason for its affinity with cancer.

Experimental treatment with HSV improved the survival time of mice with skin cancer. In the human trial, five patients had the virus injected straight into tumour lumps under the skin. Two had one injection each, two received two injections, and one was given four. The virus was a mutant version rendered harmless by having a virulence gene removed, yet still capable of reproducing. In all three patients who had two or more injections there was evidence of the virus killing tumour cells without invading or harming surrounding tissue. The most striking effect was seen in the patient who had four injections into two tumours. Both lumps became flattened and, under a microscope, there were clear signs of cancer cells dying. The next stage would be to look at what doses the virus was most effective, and at what point in the cancer's progression they might be useful.

American scientists say they have found a new clue that could improve the diagnosis and treatment of malignant melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, which does not respond to chemotherapy and spreads quickly to other parts of the body.

The answer to why these cells are so resistant to chemotherapy lies in a gene called Apaf-1, which causes cancerous cells to self-destruct in a process called apoptosis. In tumour cells, the gene is switched off so cancerous cells do not kill themselves but replicate uncontrollably. Apaf-1 is found to be inactivated in a high percentage of metastatic melanomas. Many other fast spreading cancers it is not linked to a defect in the P53 gene, which is also a key to apoptosis.

Extracts from a poisonous backyard weed have shown promise in early trials as a treatment for non-melanoma skin cancer. 39 patients with sun spots, squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and basal cell carcinoma (BCC) had so far been treated. Cancer lesions had been cleared up completely in 90 per cent of cases.

The hospital has been conducting trials on extracts from Euphorbia peplus, commonly known as radium weed or petty spurge, one of the most common weeds found in Australian gardens and alongside roads and a folk remedy for skin disease, including warts, for centuries.

The trial follows rigorous laboratory studies at the Queensland Institute for Medical Research (QIMR) for the fledgling R&D company Peplin Biotech Ltd, which has patented the active compounds in the weed. Use of a high concentration of compounds appears to cause the cancer cells to stop growing, and die - it is cytotoxic.

The patients involved in the trial were a select group including those for whom standard treatment had failed, the very elderly for whom surgery would be unsuitable, and some who had refused surgery. Out of 13 follow-up biopsies, only one showed residual disease. While some patients have been followed for 18 months, others have only just been treated, so the final results of the phase two trial will not be known until mid-2001.

The promising results could change with time, although the findings should be compared against the fact that 10 to 15 per cent of BCCs removed surgically would recur. Side-effects from the experimental extract included reddening of the skin and pain at the site of application.

Non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC), which includes basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), is the most common malignancy to affect humans. In the United States, incidence is at an epidemic level of approximately 900,000 to 1,200,000 new cases each year. Since the mid-1980s, incidence has been steadily rising due to uncertain causes.

Eighty percent of these lesions occur in the cervicofacial region. For Caucasians, the lifetime risk for NMSC is seven to 11 percent for SCC and 28-33 percent for BCC. Although mortality from NMSC is relatively low (0.1-0.3 percent of incidence), the morbidity and treatment-related costs of this disease represent a significant burden to the health care system.

A slew of recent laboratory studies suggest that extracts from green tea can prevent skin cancer and other dermatological problems. The beverage's cancer-fighting effects have been attributed to substances called polyphenols that are also present in the more commonly consumed black tea, although in lower concentrations.

In the studies, mice that were fed green tea-derived polyphenols or that had the substances applied to their skin developed fewer and smaller skin tumors. The polyphenols were later shown to help repair skin damage caused by ultraviolet radiation-the leading cause of most skin cancers-or by cancer-causing chemicals.

Green tea is made from the same leaves as black tea, but with a different curing process that minimizes destruction of the fragile polyphenol molecules and concentrates them in the tea. The main polyphenols in green tea, catechins, have been previously shown to fight inflammation and cancer in skin and other parts of the body. These discoveries have spawned a cottage industry of cosmetic and skin care products, including shampoos, toothpastes, and skin cleansers and moisturizers, that contain green tea extracts. Polyphenols, including catechins, are part of a diverse class of compounds called antioxidants that help neutralize chemicals called free radicals in the body; among other things free radicals damage DNA, potentially leading to cancer. The beneficial effects of green tea polyphenols are widely believed to be due to their antioxidant activity, the researchers wrote.

Vaccines show promise as powerful new cancer treatment-(Cancer Info-13/08/2000)

Scientists think they can teach the human body to cure its own cancer. Rather than poison cancer with chemotherapy or burn it with radiation, they envision harnessing the body's built-in surveillance machinery, the immune system. They believe they can aim this awesomely complex apparatus to hunt down cancer and destroy it.

The approach is called a cancer vaccine, a phrase that is unfortunately confusing. To most folks, a vaccine is a shot that wards off measles or the flu. Those kinds of vaccines are intended to prime the body to keep bacteria and viruses from taking root. They keep people well, but they don't cure anything. Cancer vaccines are like traditional ones in one important way: They alert the body's immune defenses to dangerous things. But instead of warning of germs, they offer the body a glimpse of its own good cells gone bad. And instead of preventing disease, they are intended to rescue those who are already sick.

Doctors have tinkered with cancer vaccines for a century, but now evidence is building that they can work, though not as predictably or as often as most would like. Just about every experimenter in the field sees the occasional miraculous remission of a terminally ill patient. Soon they hope the large studies under way will answer whether vaccines are a practical new way to fight cancer.

Perhaps more than any other cancer, melanoma seems vulnerable to the power of the immune system. One clue is spontaneous remissions. Once in a while, melanoma goes away by itself, especially after a victim fights off an unrelated infection. This suggests that newly aroused immune defenses can turn against a tumor. Melanoma is a particularly aggressive kind of cancer. Spreading tumors typically double in size every month. Yet in almost every melanoma vaccine study, researchers see a few stunning responses. In one or two patients, every trace of cancer suddenly disappears.

With the aid of robots, lasers and powerful technology that can perform tens of thousands of experiments at once, an international team of researchers pinpointed the actual genetic changes that make some melanomas spread much more quickly. Somewhere between 50 and 200 genes in the set of approximately 10,000 that we've analyzed have been identified. Using that genetic information, scientists should soon be able to design and target better treatments.

Ramona Carlson's melanoma had spread to her lungs. It was so severe her doctor told her he could do nothing but give her painkillers. But at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Steven Rosenberg gave Carlson an experimental combination: a vaccine to make her body attack the cancer and a drug called IL-2 that regulates the immune system. Her tumors suddenly shrank and disappeared.

"It's unbelievable to me," Carlson said. "It was like a miracle." A miracle, but there's a problem: The treatment only works in one third of patients. But there is good reason to think these latest findings will lead to more successes.

A personalized skin cancer vaccine is being marketed in Australia, aimed at individuals whose melanoma has already spread. The new vaccine, which is a treatment rather than a preventive measure, is made from a person’s tumour cells. It attempts to stimulate the body’s immune system to fight the cancer cells.

Skin cancer surveillance advised for kidney transplant recipients-(Cancer Info-21/07/2000)

Strategies are needed to reduce the incidence of nonmelanoma skin cancers among renal transplant recipients, according to British researchers. A review of 182 white patients with functioning renal allografts who underwent transplantation at an average age of 39 years showed that by an average of 8.5 years after transplantation, 30 patients (16.5%) had developed 118 nonmelanoma skin cancers. Twenty patients had squamous cell carcinoma, with 28 invasive and 33 in situ lesions. Eighteen patients had 53 basal cell carcinoma. Three patients had lentigo maligna melanoma. The researchers note that the ratio of squamous cell carcinoma to basal cell carcinoma, 3.8 to 1, is a reversal of the ratio found in the general population (1 to 4). In addition, the investigators note, 28 patients had actinic keratoses, and 95 had viral warts.

The annual incidence of new lesions was 10.5% in patients who had survived more than 10 years after transplant. Duration of immunosuppression, older age at transplantation, presence of actinic keratoses, male sex and outdoor occupation were significantly associated with both squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma.

They point out that 39% of the tumors were identified as a consequence of this study, and 20% were found at sites that were normally covered and unexposed to light.

Betulinic Acid Use Against Melanoma Licensed By UIC-(Cancer Info-12/06/2000)

The University of Illinois at Chicago has licensed the worldwide rights to develop betulinic acid, a compound that in animal tests has shown activity against malignant melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer, to Advanced Life Sciences, Lemont, Ill.

A UIC research team discovered the compound's therapeutic properties as part of a National Collaborative Drug Discovery Group supported by the National Cancer Institute. The UIC team systematically studies the world's plants and other natural sources for their potential to treat cancer. The researchers originally extracted the compound from the stem bark of a plant found in Zimbabwe. It showed promise in early tests, so researchers isolated the active agent and realized that it was more plentiful and accessible in birch bark.

The researchers have shown that betulinic acid kills melanoma cells in tissue culture through apoptosis, a process whereby cells program themselves to die, and halts the growth of human melanoma carried in immunodeficient mice. Unlike traditional chemotherapy, betulinic acid has no obvious side effects.

Betulinic acid (BA) was the "rage" of 1995, with reported activity against HIV and melanoma (skin cancer) cells. At the time, it seemed as if a less toxic form of chemotherapy was emerging. But research money for BA was not forthcoming, probably because it is a substance in the public domain that cannot be patented. Human studies have never taken place. In the meantime, animal and cell line studies continue to be exciting. Scientists at the Children's Hospital in Ulm, Germany have shown that BA is active against cell lines of almost all the pediatric solid tumors.

BA is active against resting tumours. Most anticancer agents kill dividing cells. But BA is very unusual in that it actively kills cancer cells in their resting phase. It thus seems like a natural companion to the more usual chemo drugs. It also functions best in a low pH environment, which is also good since the interior of tumor tissue is generally lower in pH than normal tissue.

Betulinic acid is found in certain herbs and foods, from white (paper) birch bark, the bark of the Chinese jujube date tree, the uva-ursi, or bearberry leaves, rosemary leaves and ordinary grapes.

Skin cancer can be cured if treatment is begun in the early stages of alterations to the skin, the specialist magazine, Medical Practice, reported. It is advisable for suspicious changes to be treated surgically. So called melanomas of less than 0.75mm have yet to develop metastasis, unlike those of more than 4mm. There have always been good results in early treatment of both basal cancer and epidermoid cancer.

Clinical Response Seen with Synthetic Antisense-based Therapy in Advanced Melanoma-(Cancer Info-05/04/00)*

The first success in using synthetic antisense DNA in advanced melanoma cases was reported at the 91st annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). During the Phase I toxicity and dosing trial, doctors observed a complete remission of melanoma in a Stage 4, 90-year-old woman. Complete remission has been durable for more than two months; two other patients had partial responses; three additional patients had minor, but visible, reductions.

For patients with advanced melanoma, usual survival is less than six months. The median survival of patients on this therapy is now greater than nine months. The drug did not produce any significant undesirable side effects. While there is a low threshold for effectiveness of the antisense molecule, doctors have yet to find an upper dose limit.

Promising early results from a new treatment for skin cancer are raising hopes that a clever approach called antisense therapy may pay off in fighting the deadly disease. Scientists have been talking about antisense technology-which zeros in on a cancer gene to halt malignancy at its roots-for more than a decade. But on Tuesday, they described the first cases in which the technique actually seemed to slow a deadly malignancy. Testing is still early, and doctors do not know whether the treatment will pan out. But a large international study is starting to settle this.

The treatment, code-named G3139, was developed by Genta Inc. of Lexington, Mass., which financed the research. The preliminary results were released in San Francisco at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Airline pilots have up to 25 times the normal rate of skin cancer and scientists in Iceland suspect it could be due partly to disturbed sleep patterns. Cosmic radiation and lifestyle factors, such as more frequent sun bathing, could also be involved, but pilots who flew over 5 ormore time zones had 25 times as many cases of malignant melanoma as the general population. This suggests that the importance of disturbance of the circadian rhythm should be taken into consideration in future studies, scientists at the University of Reykjavik said.

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Skin cancer breakthrough in an egg-(Scotland on Sunday-24/07/2005)

Study: Curry ingredient fights skin cancer-(Reuters10/07/2005)

Cancer study yields clues on gray hair-(Times of India-24/12/2004)

Studies: Sun holds cancer benefits and risks-(AP-02/02/2005)