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FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (Gray News) – A 14-year-old from Virginia was crowned America’s Top Young Scientist for inventing a soap that treats skin cancer. According to a news release, Heman Bekele, a ninth grader at W.T. Woodson High School in Annandale, won the 2023 3M Young Scientist Challenge last week. Heman developed Melanoma Treating Soap, a compound-based bar of soap designed to treat skin cancer. Over the next five years, he hopes to refine his innovation and create a nonprofit organization that will distribute this low-cost solution to communities in need. The final product came out to a shockingly cheap...

Treatment for locally advanced cutaneous squamous cell cancers (laCSCC) remains poorly defined. Most laCSCC tumors express high levels of epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFR). Cetuximab has activity in other EGFR expressing cancers and enhances the effectiveness of radiotherapy. In this new study, researchers conducted a retrospective review of institutional data and identified 18 patients with laCSCC treated with cetuximab induction and concurrent radiotherapy. "We performed a retrospectively review of treatment outcome and toxicity in our patients who received concurrent cetuximab and radiotherapy to show an additional potentially effective treatment option for patients with laCSCC," say the researchers. The loading dose...

New research indicates that simple laser treatments to the skin may help to prevent the development of basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma, which are collectively known as keratinocyte carcinoma and are the most common types of cancer diagnosed in the United States. The work reveals an easy-to-implement strategy to protect individuals' skin health. Nonablative fractional lasers (NAFL) deliver heat in a fractional manner that leaves it fully intact after treatment (unlike ablative fractional lasers that remove the top layer of skin), and they're currently used to treat scars, sun-damaged skin, age spots, and more; however, their effectiveness for...

Fewer cases of melanoma were observed among regular users of vitamin D supplements than among non-users, a new study finds. People taking vitamin D supplements regularly also had a considerably lower risk of skin cancer, according to dermatologists. Vitamin D plays a key role in the normal function of the human body, and it may also play a role in many diseases. The link between vitamin D and skin cancers has been studied abundantly in the past, but these studies have mainly focused on serum levels of calcidiol. Findings from these studies have been inconclusive and even contradictory at times,...

More than half of all patients who receive solid organ transplants will have an incidence of skin cancer at some point—most often a nonmelanoma cancer, such as basal cell carcinoma or squamous cell carcinoma. This increased risk can be several hundred times higher than in the general population. The increased risk is related to long-term immunosuppressive therapy required for transplanted organ survival, which affects the immune system's ability to monitor cells for abnormalities, according to Leila Tolaymat, M.D. "While dermatologists are involved in treating carcinomas and other neoplasms in high-risk patients, an understanding of skin cancer risk, is important across...

In an international, multicenter Phase II clinical trial led by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, 63.3% of patients with stage II–IV cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) saw their tumors nearly or completely disappear when treated with immunotherapy before surgery. The anti-PD1 therapy cemiplimab was well-tolerated, and the study met its primary endpoint with a pathologic complete response (pCR) rate of 50.6%, meaning no tumor cells were found at surgery. Another 12.7% of patients had a major pathological response (MPR), with less than 10% viable tumor found at surgery. The responses were confirmed by independent central pathologic review....

Researchers have discovered that treating patients who have late-stage treatment resistant melanoma with a combination of two existing drugs significantly increases their survival times. The drug repurposing trial focused on patients with end stage melanoma whose cancers had become resistant to frontline immunotherapy treatment, a class of drugs known as Immune Checkpoint Inhibiters (ICB). ICBs interfere with a cancer cells' ability to "hide" from the body's immune system allowing a patient's own body to fight cancer. The team found that by treating patients with a combination of two already approved chemotherapy drugs, Azacitidine and Carboplatin, they were able to re-sensitize...

Picture it: A car-free trip to Santa Cruz, for an attractive fare, on a train that took you to the beach in the morning, back home that night, and showed you some great scenery along the way. That describes the Sun Tan Special, operated by the Southern Pacific railroad between San Francisco, San Jose and Santa Cruz on summer weekends and holidays for most of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s. It was more than just a conveyance. “[It’s] a happy train, filled with people in a vacation mood,” says a 1940s Southern Pacific flyer. “It gives you six hours on...

A Colorado mom hospitalized for 21 days died Tuesday without seeing her husband or two children, despite the family’s repeated requests for an exception to a policy barring visitors during the coronavirus crisis ... Elizabeth, who had autoimmune issues and heart problems for years, was at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora for three weeks with severe infections in her lungs and blood. Her family was not allowed to see her because the hospital, like many during the coronavirus pandemic, has enacted a strict no-visitor policy ... No matter how many times Reiter asked to visit Elizabeth, even when...

Sexual orientation has a correlation with skin cancer prevalence, new research finds. Gay and bisexual men have higher rates of skin cancer over the course of their lifetimes compared to heterosexual men, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Dermatology. Bisexual women — but not lesbian women — were found to have lower odds of contracting skin cancer compared to heterosexual women.

A woman from Northumberland, England, says she's thankful to be cancer-free after her face was "forever changed" by a chickenpox scar. Louise Thorell, now 32, said she came down with the chickenpox at age 5, but it wasn’t until decades later, in 2018, that a facial scar left behind from the illness took on a “waxier,” tougher texture, Media Drum World reported. Thorell, who has a family history of skin cancer, was referred to a specialist who diagnosed her with basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer, typically caused by exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun...

Recent numbers released by the American Academy of Dermatology revealed a dramatic spike in the incidence of melanoma cases among young women. Melanoma is the most dangerous type of skin cancer, and for women aged 18-39, its rates have increased by 800% from 1970 to 2009. In Caucasian women under 44, the number of cases has increased by just over 6% annually. (1) Now, in addition to being the most dangerous, melanoma is one of the most common cancers in young adults (especially young women). More than 7,000 people in the United States are expected to die of melanoma in...

French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi on Friday said the European Medicines Agency had conditionally approved its anti-cancer drug Libtayo, the first drug of its kind to be authorized for use in the EU. The tumor-reducing drug is aimed at patients with the second most common form of skin cancer — cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) — whose cancer is advanced, and who are not candidates for surgery or radiation therapy. […] The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Libtayo in September 2018, while Health Canada gave it the conditional green light earlier this month. …

People who develop a common benign skin carcinoma multiple times may be at increased risk for other more serious cancers, including blood, breast, colon and prostate cancers, a new study finds. Stanford University researchers suspect the increased cancer susceptibility is caused by mutations in certain genes responsible for making proteins that repair DNA damage, according to the study published in JCI Insight. Multiple episodes of basal cell carcinoma are simply a sign of this susceptibility. The new findings don’t mean anyone who develops a basal cell carcinoma once or twice has a higher risk of developing other cancers, said study...

Kelsey-Seybold Dr. Steffanie Campbell and her husband Matt, married 10 years ago, and she still has all of their photos on her phone. It was when they were expecting their first child, flipping through photos and reflecting on their relationship, when she saw something alarming. "Looking at pictures I had taken when I was pregnant and through our wedding and we noticed there was a spot on his cheek that continued to become more prominent and we noticed it had actually changed over time," Steffanie said. The tell-tale signs of skin cancer: change in shape, size, color, was an indication...

Dr. Gary Marder in Port St. Lucie has agreed to pay up to $18 million to reimburse the government for Medicare payments on patients who were not ill. Prosecutors allege that Dr. Marder falsely diagnosed patients with skin cancer and put them through medically unnecessary radiation treatments, pocketing millions from the insurance companies. Gloria Strumalo from Port St. Lucie was one of his patients. She went to Dr. Marder's office for a checkup and was diagnosed with skin cancer. He recommended radiation therapy. “I went for 20 days of 2 hours,” Strumalo said. She had no idea that she didn't...

(Reuters Health) - Devices like tablets, smartphones and laptops can reflect ultraviolet light from the sun and may indirectly increase users' exposure to the cancer-causing wavelengths, according to a new study. “These devices are generally used for communication or entertainment, so it can be easy to overlook their reflective properties unless you happen to catch the glare off a screen,” said Mary E. Logue of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, who coauthored the research with Dr. Barrett J. Zlotoff. They wondered whether, like those old-fashioned tanning reflectors, personal electronics could also pose skin health risks, Logue told Reuters...

Without any objection, the Senate has passed a bill forcing the FDA to speed up the approval process for sunscreen technology, HAPPI reports.Sunscreen technology has stagnated in the United States since the 1990s, not because companies have failed to innovate, but because the Food and Drug Administration has been sitting on proposals submitted 12 years ago without even reviewing them.The proposals include new sunscreen ingredients, and since the FDA has dropped the ball, the Senate has picked it up with the passage of the Sunscreen Innovation Act on Wednesday night.Rates of melanoma have skyrocketed in the last 40 years, giving...

A classical definition of “public health” describes it as the art and science of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting physical and mental health, sanitation, personal hygiene, control of infection, and organization of health services. The practice of public health derives from dim antiquity, at least with respect to sanitation and personal hygiene, which was often done for religious purposes. The Greeks—including Hippocrates—in the 4th and 5th centuries BC, are considered the first to have applied logic and right reason to the causation of disease. The Middle Ages would see various plagues, and an organized response to control further outbreaks....

According to a June 2014 article featured in The Independent (UK), a major study conducted by researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden found that women who avoid sunbathing during the summer are twice as likely to die as those who sunbathe every day. The epidemiological study followed 30,000 women for over 20 years and “showed that mortality was about double in women who avoided sun exposure compared to the highest exposure group.” Researchers concluded that the conventional dogma, which advises avoiding the sun at all costs and slathering on sunscreen to minimize sun exposure, is doing more harm than...