WELLNESS-An estimated 73,000 new cases of melanoma will be diagnosed this year in the United States alone with close to 10,000 deaths. The rate of skin cancer has been consistently rising for the past 3 decades and is 20 times more common in white people compared with African Americans. The average age that someone contracts melanoma is 62 but there are a number of cases where people as young as 30 get this disease. Studies show that the older an individual is at the time of diagnosis, the worse the prognosis. The most dramatic drop in survival rate is when an individual is diagnosed with skin cancer when over the age of 70.
There is some evidence that when used properly, sunscreen may be able to help stave off the dangerous affects of the sun. The challenge here is knowing what chemicals to look for and which ones to avoid when purchasing sunscreens. Also, the rays of the sun are different at different times of the day, and contrary to popular belief, the more dangerous rays actually occur later in the day.
A study posted in the New England Journal of Medicine on patients with melanoma was conducted in England and the results have been exciting. A specific drug combination was given to 945 people in England with stage 3 or stage 4 skin cancer and who had previously not been treated with any other drugs. Nearly 60% of the tumors were found to reduce in size.
These new drugs are created to target the immune response. Our immune system knows when to turn on and off according to our body’s needs, but the cells involved with melanoma skin cancer are able to prevent the body from turning on that immune response. Once that response is deemed inactive, the cancer cells can grow uninhibited and make the person sick. The new drugs that they are using in these studies work to turn the immunity back on so the body can fight off and kill the cancer cells.
It is important to note that the side affects from the drugs in this study including nausea and diarrhea were severe in many of these patients and that liver toxicity occurred in 55% of the participant and that 36% of those patients had to discontinue the study.
Another challenge to this study is cost. The drugs needed and in the right combination push the cost into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. There will need to be more research and chemical changes done to these drugs to make them more affordable and more gentle on the liver. In the end researchers and scientists hope to create a new drug for skin cancer that is attainable for everyone.
Finally, we will not know the real outcome in regards to overall survival benefit for another 5 to 10 years. It is possible that the cancer recurrence rate could be high and the only thing that will tell is time. Regardless of the specifics, there is no doubt that this study is a positive and very promising step in the battle against cancer.
Also read the article posted here on sunscreen.
(Christian Cristiano is an acupuncturist in LA, TV host of Wellness for Realists and writes on wellness regularly for CityWatch. Christian can be reached at 323.935.3420. twitter: @CristianoWFR)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 50
Pub: Jun 19, 2015
