Research into Cause of Skin Cancer May Lead to Drug Treatment

Skin cancer is a disease that can usually be successfully treated by surgery, but researches are studying drug treatments that avoid the surgical option. Researchers at Loyola University Health Systems in the Chicago area are studying the causes of skin cancer so they can create drugs that effectively cure the disease without surgery.

Skin cancer is diagnosed in over one million people every year, according to a press release from Loyola University. Researchers studied a common form of skin cancer, squamous cell carcinoma, which accounts for about 200,000 to 300,000 cases of skin cancer each year.

Squamous cell carcinoma stars in the top layer of the skin, usually in areas of the body t are exposed to sunlight,such as the face, ear, neck, lips and backs of hands. Too much sunlight can damage the DNA of the skin cells, which can lead to skin cancer. If the damage is not too great a protein called Kinase C (PKC) is activated and prevents the sun damage. If the sun damage is too great, the PKC protein directs the skin cell to die.

According to Mitchell Denning, a profession of the Department of Pathology at Loyola University Chicago Stritch, a class of drugs called protein kinase inhibitors have the potential to shrink tumors by turning the PKC gene back on. Several of these drugs have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for other cancers. Professor Denning is pursuing grant funding to test such drugs/

Currently the treatment for skin cancer is a surgical treatment, such as simple excision curettage and electro dessication (scraping with a surgical tool and treating with an electric needle) and cryosurgery (freezing with liquid nitrogen). Surgical removal of large skin cancers can require skin grafts and be disfiguring.

The new research has to potential to create alternative treatments for this form of skin cancer so that surgery can be avoided. Drug therapy may be less intrusive and have less likelihood of scarring and skin grafts, which can be disfiguring.

Not all skin cancers are caused by sunlight, but it makes sense to protect ourselves from the effects of too much sun by covering up when outside, wearing a sun hat, sunglasses and a sunscreen or sun block.

According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), the risks for squamous cell cancer include having a large number of x-rays, arsenic, chemical exposure, having fair skin, blue or green colored eyes, blond or red colored hair and being over 50 years of age.

Resources:

EurekaAlert: How sunlight causes skin cells to turn cancerous, Loyola University Health Systems

National Institute of Health

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