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Science
Friday > Archives
> 1998
> March
> March 6, 1998:
Hour Two: Fighting the Sun's Roasting
Rays:
| Cases of melanoma account for ten percent of the skin cancers diagnosed in the United States each year. While melanoma is relatively rare, if left untreated, it can be deadly. On this hour of Science Friday, we'll both at ways to prevent melanoma and at a possible way to treat it in the future - a vaccine. |  | Earlier this week, two research teams reported in the journal Nature Medicine that they were making progress on developing vaccines to treat melanoma. The vaccines aren't preventative, the way flu vaccines are. Instead, they work to treat existing cancers by training the body to recognize certain antigens - snippets of protein on the surface of cancer cells - as foreign invaders that must be destroyed. The vaccines rile up immune cells called cytotoxic T lymphocytes, which selectively attack the cells that make up cancerous melanoma tumors. The treatments are in the very early stages of clinical trials, and are not expected to be generally available for a number of years, if ever - but present an innovative approach to the cancer treatment problem.
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D | Many dermatologists warn patients to watch for the ABCD's of melanoma -
Assymmetry, Borders, Color, and changes in Diameter.
(photos courtesy of the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health) |
Dr. Marianne Berwick, an epidemiologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, reported last month at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that she had found "no relationship between sunscreen use at any age and the development of melanoma skin cancer." While many sunscreens block ultraviolet B, which has been linked to the less dangerous but more common squamous cell and basal cell carcinomas, few sunscreens sold in the U.S. effectively block ultraviolet A - which may play a critical role in the formation of melanomas. Instead of relying on sunscreens alone to protect themselves, Berwick said, people should make judgements about sun exposure based on their skin type. People with more moles on their skin and who have light skin, fair hair, and blue eyes are at the greatest risk. Other researchers contested Berwick's findings, and encouraged the public to continue to use sunscreen on a regular basis.
On this segment of Science Friday, we'll try to cast some light on
melanoma-related science - and we'll try to find out if you can still
laze about in the sun in the months ahead.
Read what our listeners had to say about the sun's harmful rays.
Guests:
David Berd
Jefferson Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University
Philadelphia, PA
Steven Rosenberg
Chief of Surgery
National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, MD
Marianne Berwick
Associate Attending Epidemiologist
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
New York, NY
Books/Articles Discussed:
Related Links:
World Health Organization
Melanoma group
"Cancer and the Immune System" from the Cancer Research Institute
"SUNLIGHT, ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION, AND THE SKIN": National Institutes of Health Consensus Development Conference Statement
Cancer News on the Net
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