Breakthrough for Skin Cancer
Reported November 23, 2005
HANOVER, N.H. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) — Melanoma is a deadly type of skin cancer and will affect nearly 60,000 Americans this year. One type of melanoma, which is usually cured by surgically removing it, now has a new enemy.
Relaxing in the kitchen is a treasured moment for Susan Eslick and her husband Tom. Susan was diagnosed with melanoma three years ago. “You sort of hope for the best, you know, and maybe prepare for the worst,” she says.
Surgery could have removed her cancer altogether. It also would have left a big scar in the middle of her face. But Susan found a doctor who offered an alternative. “I just thought it was a great opportunity to sort of be a guinea pig, if you will, for some terrific research that was being done.”
Dartmouth Medical School’s Shane Chapman, M.D., is studying the cream imiquimod (Aldara) to treat lentigo maligna melanoma, a cancer that affects the skin’s surface. The cream is a welcome alternative to the scars surgery can leave behind.
“We can cut out the skin, but repairing it is a different story,” Dr. Chapman tells Ivanhoe. “It actually turns on, or triggers, an immune response. So what it’s doing is basically causing cell destruction.”
Dr. Chapman says what doctors are actually doing is using patients’ own immune systems to treat the cancer in a very smart, specific, directed way. Studies show imiquimod is 93-percent effective at destroying lentigo maligna.
“The patients that have been treated with this are very grateful,” Dr. Chapman says. Susan was his first patient, and she couldn’t be happier. “It was the best of all possible outcomes,” she says. With no trace of the cancer in sight, she and Tom can now focus on making memories together.
Lentigo maligna occurs in about 30 percent of people with melanoma. It’s found entirely on the skin’s surface, but if left untreated, it could spread to other organs and be deadly. Dr. Chapman hopes this research leads to the development of similar types of drugs to destroy melanoma that has spread to other parts of the body.